


The Human-Joozian Cultural Exchange Program

by snackysmores



Category: South Park
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Joozian!Kyle, M/M, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 23:27:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12899139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snackysmores/pseuds/snackysmores
Summary: Captain Wendy Testaburger is a rising star at the Earth Remnant Academy of Space Exploration, and she's always looking for a way to distinguish her crew, but when she signed on to the Human-Joozian Cultural Exchange Program, she may have bit off more than she could chew.(This fic was a part of the 2016 South Park Big Bang! You can find other incredible fics, and beautiful art accompanying them by visiting http://spbigbang.org spread the word!)





	1. Chapter 1

Personal Log of Captain Wendy Testaburger. Year 14 (2030), Month 10, Day 24.  
My ship is returning to its mother port at the Earth Remnant Academy of Space Exploration, a satellite station in orbit of Kepler-452b, the most Earth-like planet left in the Milky Way Galaxy; approximately 1,400 light-years away from the planet I was born on. Four years ago, I was named the Commanding Officer of the Streisand; a small, explorer-class space vessel with Faster Than Light technology reverse-engineered from the Academy's flagship, one of many gifts from an intergalactic trust formed to help recently displaced planetary cultures settle new planets.

The demolition of Earth could have been an extinction event, but instead we were preserved and catapulted into a new space age, left to explore the stars and claim uncharted space for ourselves. What should we be feeling? Gratitude? Or hatred? On this matter, mankind remains divided. As busy as we are, darting across space, we've kept to ourselves. The governing authority of Earth Remnant believes this won't last. We need to join the intergalactic community if we want a say in the future. We cannot risk another extinction event.

Returning from our maiden voyage, we were offered leave, but few among my crew took up the offer. High rates of crew retention, no deaths, the amount of space we've charted; all of my numbers are currently exemplary, and I have received many honors from the Academy. I could try to advance my career now, but the urge to wander among the stars has not left me, so I've signed on to remain as captain for the Streisand's second tour. In the last two weeks, while my crew has enjoyed a much deserved vacation, I've been busy reaffirming my network at the Academy- looking for new opportunities to distinguish myself from other captains.

A transparent aluminum view-port covering the entirety of the back wall presented a panoramic view of the planet below the station, one-tenth larger than Earth, with the continents in all the wrong places. At odds with the white panels riveted along the other walls, the office was decorated with wooden chairs, a wooden desk, a full bookcase, and a potted plant. The brass-plated name plaque on the desk read: Phillip Charles, Principal/Head of Xeno-Relations. Earth Remnant Academy of Space Exploration.

Principal Charles was a new administrator at the Academy, one that Wendy hadn't met in person before. His most noticeable features were his gummy smile, his blue visors, and his thin blonde mustache. He wore the drab blue-gray uniform of the faculty, with showy arm muscles popping from short sleeves, and a crew cut that squared off above the ears. She had heard that his views about aliens were very progressive, and there was a great stir when he was hired, but what caught her attention was the exchange program he started. Bridge Crewman Peter Gintz had volunteered to be the human exchange from Wendy's ship, and for the last year he had lived among the Joozians. Now, for the next year, a Joozian exchange crewman would live among the humans on-board the Streisand.

Charles spoke pointedly to wrap up their meeting, maintaining a certain level of intensity constantly, not inviting any interjection. "Captain Testaburger, I just want to say again how thrilled we are to have another ship volunteering for our new cultural integration program. Humans are still just getting their foot in the door in the intergalactic community, and xenophobia isn't helping our cause. We need to show a better side. We need trailblazers like you and your crew. Thank you."

Wendy rose from her seat and shook the principal's hand. He had a soft grip despite his big arms. Her own grip was firm and he adapted to it, as if perceiving that he might have offended her with a weaker handshake. "Crewman Gintz has spoken very positively about his year with the Joozians; he was even adopted by his host family. He's going by the Joozian name his host family gave him."

"It's very touching," Phillip replied sincerely. His beady eyes watered behind his sunglasses.

"It's quite an act to follow, but I will do my best to foster a similarly hospitable environment for our newest crew-member," Wendy assured, releasing the principal's hand.

The gold-plated comm-link on Wendy's wrist vibrated with an incoming message. With the principal turning to pontificate some more while facing the window, Wendy checked the neon blue display of her comm-link to read the message: Last night at port, have a drink with me tonight, stop working!-1st M8 Bebe

Wendy promptly replied. Drinks in my cabin @ 2100 hours? -CO Wendy T.

There was not much pausing in between messages exchanged, at least from Bebe's end. Her texts-per-minute couldn't be beat.

We've been doing drinks in your cabin at 21:00 hours for way too long! No offense Wends, but your cabin isn't the club, and I'm getting cabin fever!- 1st M8 Bebe

Wendy glanced up hurriedly. She couldn't get caught typing on the virtual keyboard of her comm-link. She offered some paltry reply to the principal's speech about accepting the past and embracing the future, following with a free-form question about the Academy's other exchange successes for him to answer at greater length, freeing her up to continue texting.

I have to oversee the Joozian crew-member exchange -CO Wendy T.

She had planned a very specific route; down the scenic promenade, taking the mag-shuttle to the docking bay, touring the Streisand- maybe a toast to a new voyage in the crew break-room before turning in for an early night.

Here's an idea: bring him to the club! B^) -1st M8 Bebe

Taking the alien exchange to the club was definitely not what Wendy had in mind.

Bebe NO -CO Wendy T.

Bebe persisted.

You, me, the alien, and an away team rendezvous at the club, immerse them in human culture, and ingratiate them with crew-members in a casual setting. Think about it?-1st M8 Bebe

Wendy would have to call for one of the stewards working pre-takeoff clean-up to take down the decorations in the break-room. No sense in having two parties set up.

If you insist. I want a private welcoming party, at a reputable establishment. Away Team will consist of any willing Chief Officers and 1-2 guests each of their choice. There will be no obscene behavior or drinking in excess -CO Wendy T.

Wendy was ready to be attentive again, even if what the principal was saying was just a bunch of pandering buzzwords that played out like a self-righteous monologue. Then her comm-link went off again.

If I can't behave obscenely or drink in excess at the club then after-party in your cabin xoxo -1st M8 Bebe. Hugs and kisses, followed by multiple unnecessary and unrelated emoticons.

Secure location and send coordinates. Over and out. Xoxo -CO Wendy T.

Wendy switched off alerts and snapped her head up, ready to look alert and attentive for real this time. She'd lost the train of the one-sided conversation entirely.

"Yeah, it's something to ponder, alright," the Principal sniffled before interacting with a control panel on his desk, leaning over it to say, "Linda, you can send them into my office, thank you."

The white door to Wendy's right made a distinct pneumatic whooshing sound, unsealing at the middle to retract toward either side of the door frame, revealing the alien and his newly adopted human brother.

Wendy addressed Peter first upon seeing him enter with the Joozian exchange, but she would be using his adoptive name from here on out. He had grown a little taller perhaps, but he looked like the same egghead with messy black hair that had left a year ago. "Ike, welcome back. This must be your brother, Kyle."

Among Joozians, Kyle looked more humanoid than most- something of a phenomena among Joozians raised on Fognl's orbiting moon as opposed to those raised on the harsh atmosphere and intense gravity of the home-world. Where humans may compare common ancestry with chimps, Joozians compare ancestry with Axolotl-like creatures. Yellow skin, four arms, extrasensory appendages protruding from the shoulders and the sides of the head, horizontal brown stripes on the face and body, soft caudal-facing fins extending from the top of the cheek bone and over the temple. Kyle's various fins and feelers were fighting for space on his head with a cloudy nebula of coiled red hair.

Wendy was expecting Kyle to be in uniform, but he was wearing red shorts, flip-flops, and a white cotton t-shirt with a picture of Earth on it. Ike was wearing green shorts, flip-flops, and a white cotton t-shirt with a picture of Fognl and its moon.

"Did you take a tumble through the gift shop on your way here?" Wendy gawked.

"Ike suggested getting presents," Kyle said, his extra arms lifting up Academy gift shop bags. "The shirt is...I bought him the one he's wearing now a year ago and he's still making fun of me for it. Now I've got one of his planet."

Wendy was grappling with internal frustration, and Ike intensified this struggle by asking, "Captain, why are you in uniform on the last day of vacation?"

Tall black boots, a crisp white uniform top crossed by a medal-decorated purple sash, and a pink beret. Long, straight black hair. Brown eyes with a shine like glass. Seeing her in a uniform, Kyle couldn't imagine her out of one.

"A commanding officer has many responsibilities," Wendy said, turning her attention briefly to the principal, "The Broflovskis are in good care, Mr. Charles."

With a gesture of her arm, the brothers fell into step behind the captain, out of the principal's office in the faculty wing, out to the commons promenade. In the center of the walkway was a vast, running garden and artificial waterbed, taking in light through UV-filtering, transparent solar panels on the concave ceiling.

On approach, the station looked like a satellite dish attached to a ball bearing, a cross of segmented rods also attached to the ball bearing, with concentric rings of metal rails that could move segment stations. A closer view revealed docking stations at the ends of each rod.

On their walk back from the academy, Kyle assumed they were to return to a docking station to see the ship, but Wendy stopped in sight of a residential area; white, modular shapes fitted against the walls formed housing for many on campus.

"Kyle," Wendy sifted for words, "would you like to...Meet with the crew, in a dance hall?"

Ike lit up, asking, "Oh, are we going to the club?"

Wendy corrected, "Kyle will be joining us, if he is interested. You are not of age, and will be retiring to the ship."

Ike saw a conflicted look on his brother's face, but encouraged him by saying "You should go!"

Kyle caught Ike's smile and it spread to his own face. "I'll see you later, Ike. To the...Dance hall then, Captain."

In their walk through the residential ward, Wendy noticed Kyle's slower, ambling gait and limited her speed to match. "If we're not on the ship's bridge, or on a mission, and if you're not speaking to me in some official capacity, you may call me Wendy."

"Alright, Wendy."

If Kyle had come to the station expecting a sample of Old Earth aesthetics and architecture he'd be disappointed at the stacked utilitarian shapes hugging the walls like honeycombs. Illuminated walkways and local light sources emitted a shifting array of cool-temperature colors. Signs of human culture were present, but merely tacked on to alien facade. One of the honeycomb structures bore a line of flags that Kyle recognized from his studies as being American states; ones that had a lot of alien activity even before the Human Relocation Project. He didn't know much about them because Ike mostly talked about Canadian provinces. Wendy moved toward this building, so Kyle asked, "is one of those flags yours?"

Wendy pointed to a flag with three horizontal stripes, white between blues, and a red "C" on a golden disc. "Colorado territory," she said. "Most of the Streisand's crew is from there, from the same snowy mountain town."

Inside the white honeycomb building; posters, photos, and graffiti covered the walls. Against the far right wall, a squat, descending staircase led to a basement floor. Against the far left wall, wood-framed glass cases held various antiques and sports memorabilia. Kyle drifted toward one that held trophies and trappings of hockey, the exciting human sport that Ike had told him all about. Teams of armored athletes skating on blades over a rink of smoothed ice, slapping a heavy puck with sticks. So much of humanity was like this, blending violence and grace. He tried to be a good sport for Ike's sake, who wanted to play all the time, but the game didn't agree with him, not like basketball did anyway. In observing the display case of basketball stuff, Kyle was reminded of how much higher off the ground the hoop was than the one he had set up outside his home. What kind of sports did humans have for people who weren't very tall or fit?

Wendy broke Kyle's train of thought, seemingly apologizing. "I was hoping that my first mate might have picked someplace more suitable."

"No, not at all!" Kyle turned to Wendy. He wasn't just fake-gawking to look interested. "If this is the usual sort of place you go to, then it's just right."

"I'm glad somebody can see what I'm going for here," a sunny voice greeted from across the room at the top of the basement stairs. A woman with bearing similar to Wendy, brimming with strength. She wore similar military dress clothes but with different colors; tall, black boots, tan breeches, and a red uniform top padded at the shoulders. Not as many medals on her sash, but she had her share. Her eyes matched the color of a cloudless, blue sky, and her golden curls were so immaculate that Kyle couldn't help but feel a little jealous. As she walked closer, his nose tingled with the scent of her hair products and perfume.

Wendy introduced them, saying, "this is my First Mate and Chief of Security, Bebe Stevens. Bebe, this is Kyle Broflovski. His official posting is undecided, but his field of expertise includes xenobiology and theoretical physics."

Kyle shook Bebe's hand, noting the meticulous care of her nails and the smoothness of her skin.

Bebe noted that Kyle's palm was a bit damp to the touch, commenting, "It's no wonder that you adopted Peter as your brother. Ike, I mean. You must have gotten along so well. It's nice to meet you."

"You too."

The introduction came to a standstill, with Kyle looking down at his flip-flops and their boots.

Bebe asked, "are you nervous?"

Kyle's head came back up, admitting with a sigh, "I guess I am." Internally, he couldn't help but compare himself to Ike- so willing to engage with an alien culture. Kyle possessed the same willingness, but he found himself tongue-tied.

Wendy advised, "Just take a few deep breaths."

Kyle followed her advice, stepping aside and taking a moment to breathe deeply- two hands resting at his sides, the extra pair rising to knead his shoulders.

Bebe's eyes followed the pacing alien, her body leaning toward Wendy to whisper, "he's got a nice ass in those little shorts," which earned her a reprimanding hiss from the Captain. She had been warned about obscene behavior.

Kyle sighed his last and said, "I'm ready."

Wendy took the lead down the basement stairs, with Kyle following, and Bebe bringing up the rear.

The bottom of the stairs terminated in one of the standard pneumatic doors, but beyond that was a small hallway terminating at a slotted wood saloon-styled door. Rocking open the saloon doors, there came a smell of herbal vapor and libation. The bar was sparsely lit with lights that gave the room an amber glow and cast obscuring shadows over the people occupying leather-seated brass-legged barstools. Loud speech and laughter echoed off of wood panels and brick walls, babbling together over the sound of a live band in the corner. These people rose from their seats to greet Kyle. Wendy tried to lead with another formal introduction, but stampeding feet corralled them at the entrance, Kyle's four hands engaged at once for simultaneous hand-shaking. He might not have heard all of their names, but his personal digital assistant did for later reference.

"Gregory," leapt above other voices to introduce himself first; all pomp in presentation, with blonde, slicked-back hair. "I was just a transfer myself once, from Yardale. Now I'm the 2nd Officer. All you need to belong here is merit."

A girl with red hair cut into the line to introduce herself. "Call me Red, I'm the Executive Administrative Assistant."

Waiting patiently behind Red, who had just cut in front of her, a girl with black hair and a yellow-topped uniform offered a flat smile and stare, but no offer for a handshake. "Hello, Kyle. My name is Leslie. I am the 3rd Officer and Chief Engineer."

Kyle bleated, "Hi, Leslie."

Bebe saw Wendy's furrowed brow and took her by the arm, pulling her toward the bar. "The alien exchange was safely escorted to the welcoming crew. Let's get something to drink!"

Wendy scanned the room in a hurry. "Stan isn't drinking, right?"

Bebe reported, "he's stayed sober all throughout break. That's what Kenny tells me, and he's a very honest person. Stan's there in the corner playing music with Kenny and Cartman right now."

Wendy whisper-shouted with alarm. "Who invited Cartman?"

Bebe held up her hands and said, "I didn't! Leslie asked for him as one of her guests."

This revelation left Wendy puzzled. "Leslie did? I've never seen them exchange as much as one word, why would she invite him?"

Bebe guessed at Leslie's motivation, saying, "The sooner he accepts that there's an alien on his crew, the better."

That didn't sit well with Wendy. "Is she trying to stir up the pot?" Her imagination took off running. "I have to make sure Cartman doesn't touch a drop of liquor either."

Bebe shrugged and drank from the blue bottle of beer that had been placed on the bar before her. "Cartman hasn't been so bad lately."

Wendy stressed her objection, saying, "Having an alien on-board the ship could bring out the worst in him. I was hoping to introduce them to each other in a more controlled environment."

Bebe took another drink and relayed the alcohol's words of wisdom. "We need to stop talking about work shit! Have a drink with me. Is there someone we can appoint to personnel relations?"

Wendy shook her head and ordered a Gin Rickey. "Those positions are pointless, no one respects them."

"Those are some harsh words."

"Managing interpersonal relations is integral to my role as captain," Wendy asserted. "I have to inspire loyalty by mediating conflict." With the first and last drink of her two-weeks vacation served to her, she took a good look at the ice clicking together in the highball glass. Her crew was a microcosm of human civilization. The Eric Cartmans of the world would have to tolerate the presence of aliens for humans to stand on the intergalactic stage. Wendy took a drink and savored the flavors; juniper berries, orange peels, lime juice, and alcohol. She looked over her shoulder. Kyle was still on the opposite corner of the room from where Cartman was playing the piano. "I was just hoping to introduce them to each other in a more controlled environment," she repeated.

Bebe lashed an arm over Wendy's shoulder and clutched against her tightly. Wendy, for her part, just tried to keep her full drink from splashing the bar as she was jostled."We're loyal to you, Wendy," Bebe hailed. "No one could replace you."

"You could," Wendy offered.

Bebe gave an exaggerated look up at the ceiling as if she was considering the offer, looking back down to ask, "What would you be doing?"

Wendy guessed with a sly grin: "Co-Captain?"

Bebe dropped her arm from around Wendy's shoulders, challenging, "You want Co-Captain, and I'm only the 1st Mate?"

Wendy hid her laughing smile behind her drink. "I'm joking." She paused a while, swirling her drink in hand, watching lime pulp settle at the bottom. The bartender had been too careless muddling the citrus, it was bringing out the lime's more bitter notes, skewing the balance of the cocktail. There was something Wendy had been hoping to talk to Bebe about, and the liquor told her to let it out. She took a preparatory breath and sat up straight on her barstool.

"In all seriousness, I'm considering a career change in a year or so."

Bebe took in the information, let it steep in her thoughts, but this wasn't wholly unexpected."There's a whole lot you want to accomplish, isn't there?" She finished her beer and tucked a tip under the empty bottle. "What would I be doing?" Bebe asked.

"I don't know," Wendy said, continuing in a slightly embittered tone, "we might have gotten a handle on that if you had been here at the Academy with me the past two weeks, networking for some gainful future employment."

Bebe rolled her eyes. "It's a short distance from lip service to ass kissing. Where's mine, huh?" Bebe nudged Wendy. "Where's my lip service and ass kissing?"

Wendy tutted at her phrasing, turning her face away to smile covertly. "Don't say vulgar things in public."

Bebe nudged again, more insistently, directing Wendy to look over at Kyle. "You notice the alien's been mingling this whole time? No meltdowns?"

Wendy scoffed and finished her drink, observing Kyle's approach toward Stan, Kenny, and Cartman in the corner. "Give it time."

"You are such a grump, I love you," Bebe laughed. "Let's get another drink."

Kyle treaded lightly across the bar floor in his squeaky flip-flops. He'd been held hostage for one introduction after another, and there were still many more crew-members to meet. Friendly faces everywhere. He followed along with their customs; make eye contact, smile, shake hands, exchange names and assigned utility on the ship, offer future opportunities for cultural exchanges; but his eyes sometimes darted away, elsewhere, toward someone else. When he looked at this person his smile pursed, his teeth bit into his bottom lip. His hands shook, clasped together for support, and shook some more, wringing together with anguish. What was his name? Should he ask? No, don't spoil it. Experience it first-hand.

After each distracted introduction he would strategically go to the next closest person in the direction he meant to go. Sometimes he positioned himself so that he could look at this person over the shoulder of the other person he was introducing himself to.

Closer and closer to him now. He hadn't looked up once. He was absorbed into his music, playing the upright double-bass in an ad-hoc jazz trio. This allowed Kyle some freedom to stare as he liked, liking what he was staring at. Short, black hair. A bit messy at the fringes, just begging to be futzed with. The sleeves of his white uniform were rolled up, toned arms cradling his instrument. He did not look wholly familiar with the double-bass in playing it, but he had the theory down. Kyle reasoned that he played a similar instrument and had just picked up a new one for fun. His hands looked coarse and dexterous, with fine motor muscles that looked well-trained. He closed his eyes at times and tapped his foot on the floor when the beat of the dramatic piano-player got away from him. It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but Kyle was desperate to know what the color of his eyes were. This human met all of the qualifications to be 'classically handsome' with his conservative style, defined jaw, and air of mystery. Why was this gorgeous specimen hiding in the corner? When no one was looking, what made him frown and cast his eyes at the floor?

His gravity pulled Kyle closer, unable to retreat. Kyle couldn't have been approaching anyone else moving toward the corner like this. Reaching atmospheric entry, past the point of no return, it dawned on him all too abruptly: 'what am I going to say to him?'

The human that Kyle had been admiring finally looked up at him, too close now to escape even his oblivious notice. His eyes were blue, reflecting off of Kyle's green. Kyle spoke his mind.

"I find you very attractive."

The bass-player's fingers fumbled over his strings and his words, his mouth gaped and his eyes opened wider. "Say what now?"

Kyle re-iterated his intentions, doubling down on his bold approach."I find you very attractive. I'd like to pursue you romantically."

The human put aside the double-bass and rose from his seat, paying the other members of the jazz trio a brief glance of disbelief. The heavy-set piano-player shook his head profusely, while the reedy blonde sax-player nodded with gusto. Weighing their input, the human re-engaged with First Contact. "It's 'Kyle', right? Is being this up-front normal for..." he trailed off.

"No! I just didn't want there to be any ambiguity," Kyle said. All the same, the human's reaction to him was full of ambiguity. Kyle asked, "do you find me attractive?"

"I don't really know you," he admitted.

Kyle realized his misstep. He needed to observe protocol and ritual. "A date!" he declared, his inferior set of hands clasped on to one of the humans', asking, "would you go on a date with me?"

This was met with another point of contention. "We're starting a year-long voyage into uncharted space tomorrow."

"Right," Kyle acknowledged. There would not be much opportunity to go out. "Could tonight be our date then?"

The human continued to dodge Kyle's advances, but the pulse of his hand rose, his eyes roamed all around the room, and a smile flickered under the veneer of his formal speech. "You're not in the medical crew, are you? We couldn't if I was your superior."

Kyle was unsure. "The captain said I could be working with multiple crews."

The human shrugged; an awkward gesture of pitched shoulders, expressing or perhaps merely feinting doubt, ignorance, or indifference. "We would need to get approval."

"Okay, let's ask now!" Kyle, at once pulled them toward Wendy, who was seated at the bar.

"Uh, wait a sec!" Kyle's date-to-be tugged on the line, in a state of shock as he was abducted by the smitten alien and dragged toward Wendy. Kyle seemed nice, sure, and honest with his feelings too, but the human had yet more reservations about dating that he hadn't been able to voice yet. He'd resist more if he wasn't curious how Wendy would react.

"Captain," Kyle greeted Wendy. He realized at this late juncture that he didn't know the name of this handsome superior officer. He tried, as casually as possible, to look at his potential date's name-tag before he spoke. "I want to go on a date with the...Chief Medical Officer, Stan Marsh. Would that be alright?"

Wendy paused to process the request, looking between the two of them before conceding, "yes, of course."

Kyle smiled and squeezed Stan's hand. "Thank you, Captain."

"Enjoy yourselves." Wendy's eyes imparted some severity toward Stan with but a glance.

Kyle rushed Stan to the saloon-style doors of the bar to leave. "Let's hurry!"

The remaining members of the jazz trio, now the jazz duo, moved toward the bar in a hurry. The sax-player, combat pilot Kenny McCormick, ordered a round of shots now that Stan was absent. The piano-player, security officer Eric Cartman, approached Wendy, asking her, as if she knew, "What the fuck was that?"

Wendy ignored him outright, so Kenny answered, "Stan's gonna get laid."

Eric bristled and fake-heaved. "Kenny, he's an alien! That's fucking gross!"

Kenny rolled his eyes and put a skinny shotglass of tequila in Cartman's pudgy fingers. "You're jealous, dude. I can't tell which one of them you're jealous of, but you're definitely jealous."

Cartman jabbed a finger at his friend's chest. "Fuck you!," he declared, before downing the shot and slamming it on the bar-top, wiping a drip on his chin across his sleeve, directing his impotent rage back at the captain. "This is wrong." He paused. No one agreed with him, so he declared again to agree with himself, "It's wrong!"

"It's just two people going on a date," Wendy said.

"Wrong," Cartman said gravely, accepting another shot from Kenny, only speaking after he'd drank it and let out a deep breath. "One person and one Joozian. The Joozians cannot be trusted. They manipulated our history, they demolished our planet to steal our resources, they control all the media in the universe, and they're eroding our moral fabric- they want us to be tolerant of sex with aliens so that they can breed us into a hybrid slave race, until there are too few of us pure humans left to fight back when they decide to finish us off."

Wendy asked, "Have you got an argument against Stan going on a date with Kyle that doesn't make you sound like a fanatical bigot or a conspiracy dipshit?"

"Alright," Cartman leveled and sat down on a barstool that creaked under his weight. "I'm afraid that Stan is going to get hurt."

Wendy faltered at that because she was afraid too. "Either of them could get hurt, that's just the chance you have to take getting involved with someone. If you would like a reference to Kyle's character, ask his newly-adopted brother."

That did not assuage Cartman. "He's got one of their names now. How do we know that he's still Peter? How do we know that Stan will still be Stan once Kyle's done with him?"

"I can only hope that you're not referring to some insane invasion of the body-snatchers scenario-"

"I am-," Cartman clarified.

"-because that would make you a complete idiot. You'll see Ike and Stan tomorrow. Scan them, interview them, ask them about what sort of person Kyle is if it will help your anxiety."

"My anxiety..." Cartman grumbled, "what about the alien? Are we scanning and interviewing the alien?"

"You will not be involved in that process," Wendy assured, "I can just imagine the sort of invasive searches you'd want to perform."

"I bet Stan's gonna perform some invasive searches, with his penis," Kenny snickered, accepting the full brunt of Cartman exploding at him, slapping him about the shoulders.

"I'm going back to the ship," Wendy announced wearily. "Tomorrow, and for the next year forward, Kyle is a member of this crew, and he is to be treated as such. Understood?"

"Understood." Cartman waited for Wendy to leave the bar, escorted by Bebe. "She's going to regret bringing that alien on board, mark my words."

"Yeah, that's great," Kenny commented, not at all paying attention, trying to tug Cartman out of his seat. "Let's go back to the corner. I want to lay on the piano for a while, sing a couple songs. You know the ones."

Cartman wheezed and nearly lost his balance, sliding off the high stool and into a standing position, slumping against Kenny on the way to the corner, parked on the grand piano's black bench. He swayed in his seat, but he was still able to slap his fingers on the keys and run through scales. Grimacing as he rolled his head on his shoulders, he popped the stressed joints to the vertebrae in his neck, regaining his composure.

Laying down the piano top and spreading himself over it, Kenny hummed a bit and cleared his throat. He kicked his feet straight up in the air and rolled away from Cartman to face the rest of the bar. "Here's a song for all the lovers out there," he crooned.


	2. Chapter 2

Wendy and Bebe held hands on the empty mag-shuttle to the docking bay. Sitting against white benches, Bebe was looking up at the stars through the ceiling and Wendy was looking down at Kepler-452b through the floor.

"What's on your mind, Wends?"

"Thinking about snow."

Traveling from home to new places used to mean staring out the window into a seemingly infinite plane of whirling white that kept everything weighted down. Less than five people to a vehicle, following the road, tasked only with finding something to listen to on the radio.

Traveling to new places meant something different now. Staring out into an ever-expanding abyss of ink black, dotted with sparkles of fires lit long ago and far away, propelling yourself through it blindly, weightless, tasked with keeping everyone on-board alive.

"You never know how much you love something until its gone, huh?" Bebe leaned her head against Wendy's. "What about the holodeck?"

Wendy tucked in against Bebe's shoulder. "It can't be a program manipulating what I feel. It has to be real."

"Maybe we'll find the real thing out there," Bebe said.

"Maybe," Wendy replied.

Stan and Kyle left the bar in such a rush, Kyle didn't know where he was going, and Stan was still reeling from Kyle taking him by the hand so suddenly to begin with.

Stan had been asked out right in front of Wendy, which was definitely awkward, Stan and Wendy used to date. He should have mentioned that to Kyle by now, but the timing was all wrong. They walked hand in hand down the promenade in silence, unaccompanied, lights glowing on the floor, stars twinkling above.

Kyle looked down at Kepler-452b. It wasn't like Earth. It wasn't a true substitute for Earth. He knew that. He knew someone in the crew had to hate Joozians for what happened to create Earth Remnant. He thought it was an injustice and he was doing what he could to help these humans up to a platform to represent themselves. Of course, he had to be careful not to get full of himself. This was just a diplomatic mission. He didn't have a fetish for humans either. He just really liked this one. That's all. Did Stan like him at all? He had looked hesitant before. Maybe this was only his begrudging acceptance bringing him along. Patronizing the alien, taking him for a play-date.

Kyle and Stan were both mired in unproductive thought while dropping points of conversation. They talked about their jobs. Stan was the chief medical officer and mental health counselor. He admitted that he used to be squeamish around blood and viscera , and close to mental disorder, but he'd gotten used to it.

For a human that was admirable, to endure pain until it no longer effected you. For Kyle it was a frightening prospect. What did Kyle do for work? He hadn't needed the same training to fly on a deep-space ship like the humans had, Joozians were naturally suited to enduring more extreme forces of gravity. He was mostly studying other aliens' biology in his academic hours. Human biology he studied in his private hours, but Kyle kept that to himself. He also studied in theoretical physics, which Ike had taken a shine to. Kyle's father works as a lawyer and his mother works as a lobbyist, both of them championing civil causes that called for better treatment of marginalized planets.

Stan's parents were separated. It was like they were always waiting for some cataclysm to uplift them from each other. No more pretense needed to live a normal life if life was no longer normal. His dad studies alien rocks, and his mother works for a plastic surgeon.

Kyle mentioned he'd thought about getting work done on his nose, what did Stan think?

Stan didn't think he needed it. It made Kyle happy, but he couldn't help but think his nose would get in the way if they were to press their faces together and kiss each other a lot.

Stan hasn't kept contact with his sister. He never cared for her much because she beat him.

Kyle appreciated that the two of them were becoming more open, even if the conversation was kind of low-energy and at times dipped toward depressing.

"Are relationships among crew-members common?" Kyle landed on it, the question.

"Yeah," Stan explained in a word. "Things are a bit complicated as a result. It's just sorta what happens?"

Kyle laughed. Humans were fine without specific answers to some things. 'It just sorta happens' doesn't mean anything. What did it really mean that crew-member relationships were common and complicated? The ages of the crew lined up with sexual maturity he supposed, and though moral regimes declared monogamy the human norm during the course of civilization toward nuclear families, humans weren't biologically programmed with that to begin with. Maybe it was too soon to ask Stan about his history just yet, a risky point of conversation to say the least.

He may have made things complicated himself by being in such a rush, but this is the last chance they'd have before being in 'work mode', spending day and night on a ship together with expectations to remain professional and maintain standard operations. Workplace relationships had to be handled delicately. Wendy had picked her words carefully and allowed him to have a date. Was it just because he was a guest on the ship?

They came to the end of the promenade after a long walk. Neither knew where they were going.

"Where will we go?" Kyle asked.

"We can go to my dorm. It's pretty bare, but it has the utilities still running."

They were both thinking of being private together, all the better to feel this out and know if it was worth pursuing, though Kyle was already sold on it and just felt that he had to bring Stan around. They walked among the dorms until they found Stan's, and they went inside to find it stripped bare, recently cleaned, it was a temporary posting during his vacation, and more often he'd spend the night elsewhere.

"Are your quarters aboard the ship more personalized?" Kyle asked, hoping to see more of Stan's style and personal effects.

"Yeah, that's where I've been spending most of my time. You'll see tomorrow. I mean, you could."

Kyle took that to heart as a good sign. "Do you cook?"

"I cook some," Stan said modestly.

"Cook for me," Kyle requested.

"I've gotten used to using the replicator," Stan mumbled. Why cook when you can 3-D print a finished spaghetti dinner? It was one of the alien machines that really took off with humans, no more dehydrated and flash-frozen junk on missions. Amino acids and various nutrients synthesized and printed. At first they looked like simple plastic shapes dumped on a plate, but inside the sealed printing area it was pressure cooked, steaming the glassy viewing window, finishing with a hot plate that tasted consistently alright.

Kyle had had this a few times, though human palette and menu cartridges were niche import products that barely made it past Joozian food advisors, with the human palette enjoying multiple items considered profane to the Joozians.

Ultimately, the replicators couldn't replace a cook in the same way that a robot can't replace a piano player. Imperfection and inconsistency has its own value and artistry. There is effort, passion, and a context behind individual performance. It would be grossly inefficient for machines to replicate that, so they did not. They could not.

"Please?" Kyle pleaded.

"What should I make?" Stan relented. He could at least print the ingredients and then combine them by hand. There wasn't really a green grocer he could buy from. Growing your own food was more of a home-world thing. Plants were grown on the station for air filtering and beautification, but a garden was not worth the resources.

"Whatever you liked eating most when you were young. Don't worry, I've taken a universal enzyme supplement that will safely break down the foods you humans commonly eat."

"I guess that's uh, pizza."

Stan used to eat pizza once a week, usually over the weekend, and having pizza for your birthday was the norm among his circle of friends. It was one of those foods that got tied to happy memories so he'd eat it again when he needed a pick-me-up.

"Oh! Pizza always looked so good on television!" Crispy, crusted flat pies with tomato sauce, cheese, and any topping you could dream of- cut into big triangle pieces drooping with the weight of melting cheese and dripping with grease.

"It's really not much better than pizza you can get anywhere." Stan printed out the raw ingredients for dough and sauce, as well as cheese, pepperoni, and black olives. That was Stan's go-to. Kenny liked fruit on his pizzas, and Cartman preferred the meat lovers'. Everyone had their own pizza preferences, and only really got to enforce them on their birthdays.

"I don't know, I think it will taste better if you make it." Kyle was certain of it. And if it wasn't, maybe that was an indication their tastes didn't align? He was really reaching. If you like his home-made pizza, you're destined to be? Stan would have to be the one to cook. Kyle's fine eating human food, but he's guessing Stan isn't interested in eating Joozian food. He could sympathize. It was a lot of mashes of colors and creatures. He was a very picky eater growing up, and his mother would encourage him by mashing joozian ingredients into human recipes. The results horrified Ike when he visited, and though he tried he could not keep down the meal.

Stan had combined a number of dry ingredients and water into a glass bowl and made a lump of dough. Popping it into the machine it rose and settled in a fraction of the time it would otherwise. He was able to take it out and start working at it with his hands. Kyle was watching closely.

"What are you staring at?" Stan asked bashfully, looking up from his flour-dusted hands on dough.

The action of Stan's hands kneading firmly into the dough...It was strangely erotic. Fingers digging in over soft lumps; gripping, squeezing, curling, nice and firm...Kyle felt a bit heated as his imagination ran off on it's own.

"Nothing," Kyle assured with a bold lie."What do you drink with pizza?" he asked.

"Root beer," Stan answered with his own bold lie. That was what he had as a kid, but he knew the best compliment to a hot pizza pie was a cold beer. Couldn't have any of that anymore. He was doing pretty well now staying away from it. The Academy tried to ban alcohol outright, but students quickly found a way to hack the replicator into fermenting all the juices on tap into basic wines. Nasty, but they could get you drunk.

Liquor was an old friend of mankind. Who were they to turn their back on a friend? Stan's relationship with it was more complicated, somewhat predetermined by his fathers' and his grandfathers' predilections to it. He knew if he used it as they did he'd wind up a mad fool too.

Kyle asked Stan to describe what he was doing some more, eager to hear his commentary.

"This is a basic crust," Stan began, "I don't like it too buttery or too chewy, but it can't be too salty or dry either." He rolled the dough out into a disc shape, preparing to roll the edges over. "Wet the crust at the edge, roll it in, brush with oil." He ladled red sauce over dough. "This is the pizza sauce. There's tomato and spices in it, basically." What Stan was saying wasn't so important as him just saying something for Kyle to listen to, that he enjoyed.

"This is mozzarella cheese," he introduced, tossing shreds of white onto the sauce. "It's smooth and mild, so it mellows out the toppings. I'm putting on pepperoni, which I like to be spicy, and black olives, which are salty."

Inside the 'oven' of the replicator, the arranged pizza puffed up in an instant, baked on a printed sheet of stone with simulated brick-style heat. Keeping it resting on the hot stone, Stan cut it into triangles and served them each a drippy slice on printed disposable plates. Kyle touched it gingerly, finding it hot and oily to the touch. He wanted to sponge the excess oil off the top, but he didn't want to offend. Using a knife and fork might not be approved of either. Stan was eating it with his hands. Kyle picked up a slice with a napkin guarding his pale yellow finger tips and took a bite, having to slurp up cheese that threatened to drip away.

"It's delicious!" Kyle was relieved. "Because you made it."

"What sort of thing would you put on here as a topping?" Stan asked.

Kyle punched in settings on the replicator to produce two root beers, as well as a green slug thing. He tossed it onto Stan's pizza, causing him to jump back in his chair. Kyle encouraged him to try taking a bite. Stan retrieved a knife and fork for himself and Kyle snuck a pair after him, knowing that cutlery was now considered okay.

Stan poked at the plump green morsel. He sliced it open to reveal a brown interior of filleted channels like an anchovy's flesh on the inside. Stan lurched away.

"That's no way to react!" Kyle laughed. He picked up one of the halves Stan had just cut and ate it.

Stan plucked his off the pizza and shoved it into his mouth. Stan grimaced harder and shook his head vigorously, spitting the thing out and drinking down a glass of root beer. "I'd have puked."

Kyle feigned a wound. "You hardly tried it."

"Does Ike eat that stuff?"

"No."

After eating pizza the two of them sat on the couch and talked for hours. It wasn't always very interesting or amusing. Becoming close with another person took time, and over time you built a language together. Stan was trying to kick old habits and Kyle was trying to bridge a cultural gap of many light-years.

Kyle name-dropped every piece of human media that he could to try and impress Stan with his knowledge. Stan wasn't a fan of all of them, but he really reacted when Kyle mentioned Terrence and Philip, which surprised him. His parents thought it was such a vulgar show. Two men fart on each other. That's the joke. Every single time. They're cowboys, priests, soldiers, detectives; they're on a train, in a car, on the moon; all situations lead to one of them getting farted on. What's so funny about it? He'd like to ask Stan, but then it might seem as if he didn't get it. Kyle had his theories. It could be the dissipation of suspense. You know the fart is coming, but it's been done so many times they can play on expectations. Maybe it was the fact that it was so juvenile, and that when someone said farts weren't funny, they became funny for causing such a fuss.

Something he was unclear on was why the Queef Sisters performed so poorly compared to Terrence and Phillip in terms of viewership. It was the same joke, wasn't it? Maybe it's the fact that a fart sprays shit particles and a queef sprays something else. Also, there isn't a pronounced smell, and the noise isn't as percussive. Humans farting on each other hadn't come up much in his research, so perhaps the taboo is part of the humor?

The X-Files also got a rise out of Stan. It was popular in South Park because visitors were a big deal there. He said one of his friends was abducted in passing but didn't comment anymore on it after that.

Before the cancellation, the majority of humans were oblivious to the presence of aliens on Earth.

"I wish I could have been there. With all of you," Kyle mumbled.

"Yeah, me too." Stan wouldn't have minded another friend. His gang wasn't the most popular at school. He played sports, his girlfriend was class president and captain of cheer squad, but he hung out with the wrong people and so he got lumped in with them. Maybe someone like Kyle could have kept things on the straight and narrow more often. He could sort of imagine it, and when he did he wished it could have been.

The pair of them locked eyes and imagined how life may have been if they had always known each other.

"No one's looked at me like that in a while." Stan mumbled, both of them getting quiet and anxious.

"It's real," Kyle said. "I feel something when I look at you. When you look at me, how do you feel?"

"It's uh, something," Stan said, unsure.

"And not nothing?"

"It's not nothing." Stan said this more surely. They shifted on the couch, closer together. It was difficult to say, but given the need for protocol thus far, Kyle stated his newly-formed intentions. "Would you like to fool around a bit?"

That made Stan move in his pants. "Yeah." He wanted that to sound more relaxed than he said it. He hadn't gotten any in a while. When he missed it he'd try to pound it off and forget about it, but at night what he missed about coupling most was just being with someone.

Stan chastised himself. He was already mentally leaping from a little fooling around to sleeping together. He'd give fooling around a go, and if Kyle didn't say anything in his typically honest manner, he would have to be the one to do so. Kyle crawled on top of his lap on the couch and pulled a quilt over the top of them, mostly shrouded in darkness with gaps in the fabric letting in light. Kyle threaded his arms around his shoulders and kissed Stan. It felt good, so they continued kissing. It was a bit awkward to navigate Kyle's ridges and features and the angle needed was taxing on the neck so they were regularly shifting and leaning, pressing more firmly into each other each time. Stan didn't know what he was expecting down there, but as Kyle started grinding over his lap he felt some kind of smooth and heated mound on Kyle that filled him with perverse curiosity.

"Do we have to hide under this quilt?" Stan asked, finding his breath growing hot and shallow.

"I like it to be dark, is that okay?"

Stan shut off the lights and negotiated that at least their heads went uncovered so he could breathe. They each pulled off their tops and set them aside. Feeling along Kyle's smooth hips he found little dips in his flesh like moist navels.

"What are those?" Stan's finger twitched back and away, but then pressed again inquisitively.

"That's one of my thrushers." Kyle said. "They used to be used for water filtration tens of millions of years ago. Now they're just sorta there."

"Does it feel good if...?" Stan applied a little more pressure.

"Don't push, be gentle..." He heard of guys that really jammed their fingers in, but he had only kinda tickled them a few times during masturbation when he felt like he was in heat and had the time alone.

Stan pressed against Kyle's thrushers. "Your antenna are, uh, getting hard," he noticed.

"There, on my shoulder too." Kyle bid Stan through his embarrassment, guiding him to grope and feel parts of him the human didn't know about. "That's my jagon." Two fleshy ball and nub-tipped appendages jutting up from his shoulders. It was common for Joozians to rub these against each other during the mating dance. "That feels good...Can I touch you too?"

"Uh, yeah," Stan consented.

Kyle was very eager to try feeling a human male's penis. Kyle held Stan's in his palm, mentally calculating its weight, but it sprung up out of his palm of its own accord, curving upward. Kyle held it between his fingers to keep it from getting away and squeezed, two of his hands moving to weigh Stan's balls.

"Woah, uh," Stan groaned. The flesh of Kyle's palm was very smooth, moist even, and his hips hitched up into his firm squeezing.

"How is that?" Kyle asked.

"Good. Really good. Try..." He moved his hips up into Kyle's grasp, humping at his clasped hand. After a few strokes Kyle understood to tug on his flesh the same way, to hold him and then slide his hand up and down. The tip of Stan's cock leaked a clear fluid indicating that he was preparing for release.

"How can we, uh?" Stan asked and Kyle synched. They each visualized the two of them joined in congress.

"Do you have a bath?" Kyle asked.

"Just a shower." Stan was groping now too, cupping a hand over Kyle's crotch before slipping down the front.

Kyle guided him."This mound here. No, not there...Yeah. And at the same time, if you..."

"I only have two hands," Stan grunted. Kyle devoted a pair of hands to spreading himself for Stan.

"If you took it into your mouth..." as Stan crooked in against his shoulder Kyle suggested he put his mouth on his jagon, which he did.

"More?"

Questions back and forth; probing, touching, pushing, squeezing, and gasping. Kyle was making a mess over Stan's lap and Stan reared back from the threat of premature release.

"Let's go to your shower."

Kyle danced obscenely in the shower for Stan. Arms behind his back and presenting himself, swaying his hips from side to side. He guided Stan to his knees before he sat across his face and rode him like a bike seat, Stan nudging him with his nose and digging with his tongue. In short order Kyle's body rocked with a series of convulsions as frothing spherical heads and wriggling jelly tails poured over Stan. Kyle collapsed down into the corner of the shower stall where they lay in the mess of it all.

Stan wasn't finished, gently rubbing hands over his thighs. "Do you think my uh, my penis could go in there?"

Kyle could only nod, it was too obscene for him to ask out loud, just moving to wrap his legs around Stan's waist. Stan hugged him and kissed him and pushed him against the wall to slide forward to his hilt, finding a slick, elastic interior. Stan had him the way he wanted him, thrusting away doggedly toward his release and Kyle was just glad to be along for the ride. He thought he was done, but in response to Stan's swift internal ejaculation, Kyle shrieked and withdrew himself with a wet popping sound as more backed-up spermataphores spilled out from his mound, clogging the drain.

"My hair is going to stay wet all night," Kyle complained afterwards, still slumped in the corner of the shower. "My products are in the bag Ike took back to the ship. I knew I should have gotten that fanny pack at the gift shop."

"Blowdryer?," Stan suggested.

"Dry heat would be terrible for my hair and my scalp."

"My conditioner?"

"Your hair is too different. It's nice though." Kyle stroked through Stan's hair.

"It's past curfew, we need to turn in," Stan sighed. "Wendy is very strict about being on time."

"Do they have a bath on the ship? It'd be more comfortable for me." Kyle already had a mind to think of next time.

Stan began, "Yeah, there's a bath, but-"

"Great," Kyle interrupted, "can you help me up?"

Stan carried Kyle to bed and fell in with him, crowding their faces over a pillow with a towel spread over it.

"No fooling around in the morning, we definitely have to be on time."

On-board the Streisand, back in the Captain's quarters, Bebe and Wendy's first order of business was pulling off their dress boots. They looked great, and once you break them in they stop breaking you, but it's hard to relax with them on. Neither could pull theirs off on their own, turning to each other to sharply tug and free one foot at a time with exerting grunts terminating in sighs of relief. Nylons came off next, cast aside on the floor and forgotten like a snake shedding its old scale coating. Breeches, jackets; off. Wendy put her beret onto a hat stand as Bebe went to the bathroom in her dress shirt and panties to take out her contacts.

There was a bucket of ice, champagne, and a card on Wendy's nightstand. Wendy read the card aloud. "Captain Testaburger, here's to another safe tour under your command. From Pip and the stewards."

"What is it?" Bebe called from the bathroom, delicately 'removing her eyes', as she was fond of saying.

"The cleaning crew sent champagne," Wendy answered, turning the bottle in her hands. She appreciated the gesture, but she recognized the champagne; it had been earmarked to be at the break room welcoming party she canceled.

"I want to pop it off!" Bebe cried out urgently, cleaning her face once she'd taken out her contacts.

"You're not doing it over my bed again," Wendy warned, begrudgingly bringing a pair of long-stemmed glasses and the champagne bottle to the bathroom, dripping a trail of icy water on the floor.

"You got the glasses?" Bebe asked, patting her face dry.

"Yes," Wendy confirmed, but had more to say. "Frankly I find it presumptuous for them to have given me two glasses."

Bebe turned to Wendy and stepped closer to bring her blurry image into focus. "Pip is nothing if not attentive."

"I'll say."

Bebe took the bottle and popped it open with a holler, pouring the two glasses full before drinking directly from the bottle.

"Bebe!" Wendy exclaimed, left holding a drink in either hand.

Pleased with the reaction she got, Bebe stopped her swilling and took a glass, putting the bottle back in the bucket.

"How are you feeling?" Bebe asked in bed.

"Tired," Wendy sighed. "You?"

"I'll get there," Bebe said, leaning on her elbow with her cheek in hand, drinking champagne.

"It seems that I still get the pre-flight jitters," Wendy admitted, sipping from her glass.

"You're fine after the first FTL jump," Bebe assured her.

"Yeah, I know."

Out of the humans settled on Kepler-452b, few volunteered to go into space, and fewer volunteered to go into deep space. Studying for years. Training for years. The forces exerted during takeoff are strong enough to keep blood from reaching the brain. The forces exerted during a jump faster than light were many times stronger, and the calculations were many times more complex.

Everyone in her grade wanted to join the Academy once they were re-settled in Kepler. It was a surprise to her parents that Wendy wanted to, because airplanes frightened her as a young child. On the occasions that they traveled by plane, every moment up to take-off was full of tense anxiety for her. During her first flight, neither of her parents, and none of the stewardesses could explain how a heavy metal plane flied to her satisfaction, so she decided to go to the library when she got home. She asked Stan to go with her, not expecting that he would say yes. He traced pictures of fighter planes for a while as she read. He drew the two of them in a biplane together, and then he drooled on the corner of the drawing when he fell asleep on the table.

"Maybe if you had taken some more time to relax."

Wendy took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose. "Let's talk about something else."

"So, about Stan and Kyle," Bebe prefaced. "What odds are you taking?"

"Excuse me?"

To have brought them up in the first place was a surprise for Wendy, but the mention of odds left her degrees more confused. Bebe explained, "there's a betting pool going around on whether or not Stan and Kyle are gonna go steady."

Wendy sat upright in a hurry. "That is obscene!," she declared, "who organized this?"

"...I did?"

Bebe had received multiple texts immediately after Kyle approaching Wendy with Stan at the bar, and after some back and forth texting she inadvertently established the betting pool.

Wendy was aghast. "Unbelievable. Under no circumstances are Stan and Kyle to find out about this."

"If you wanted to bet against it you could make some good money."

"Stan and Kyle not going steady are the long odds?"

"Once Ike bet on them going steady it really stacked, yeah."

Ike had known Kyle for a year and passed for the expert in this situation. Before Ike weighed in, people were betting based on theories as flimsy as astrological signs, made all the more useless considering they saw different constellations in this part of the galaxy. That said, prospects were good for Libra Stan and Gemini Kyle being compatible.

Wendy asked, "In the context of the bet, what does 'steady' mean?"

"Steady means they're still together at the end of the year. 1:4 says they don't."

Wendy let the bubbles of the drink fizzle and pop down her throat with a slow gulp. She just didn't see them making it that long. "I'll take those odds."


	3. Chapter 3

At 0500 hours, the ceiling of the promenade simulated the shifting gradient of a sunrise. Without an atmosphere around them, there was no shifting in light and no color to the sky, just the darkness of space and glare of stars. Academy studies showed that simulated light-and-color shifts were beneficial to a human's psychological state, better to see a simulated sunrise than none at all.

Kyle thought it was an awfully early time to get up. Stan plied him out of bed by making breakfast from scratch, pancakes, to continue the theme of 'delicious discs from my childhood'. Stan took up Kyle's hand firmly and walked down the promenade with him, hurrying to make the scheduled mag-shuttle to the docking bay.

A voice thick with bile slithered into Kyle's ear as they stepped onto the shuttle.

"The Joozian."

Kyle turned to see the fat one that had been playing piano at the bar the night before. He'd clipped his brown hair short, and it wasn't a good look for his fat face, so he was wearing an officer's hat to cover it up, paired with the red uniform of a security officer. Brown eyes locked in disdainful staring. Of the few friends Stan had, he mentioned one had been abducted by aliens as a child. Given the hateful looks, Kyle guessed it was Cartman. It hadn't been the Joozians abducting people to probe them, but the 'Greys' observing Earth did so while under the employ of Fognl's producers, so he couldn't discount Cartman's distrust toward aliens.

Stan had mentioned Kenny as well. His loud orange flightsuit pulled a lot of attention. He had big blue eyes, soft features, and dirty blonde hair that looked like it had never met a comb. He had the reputation of being a truant and a pervert, but also the reputation of being an attentive and honest person.

"His name's Kyle," Stan corrected Cartman before introducing them in kind. "Kyle, this is Kenny and the Fatass. Fatass, Kenny- this is Kyle."

"Hi Kenny, hi Fatass." Kyle waved both of his right hands at them.

Cartman snapped, "don't call me a fatass, you slimy Joozian! I'll rip your balls off!"

Kenny asked, "do Joozians have balls?"

"No," Kyle corrected, "Joozians don't have external testes like humans, we have cloaca."

Kenny whistled and Cartman gagged.

Stan frowned, "you're supposed to be making Kyle feel welcome."

"This is how we talk to each other" Cartman argued, "that's making him welcome, isn't it?"

"Not if you're ripping on him for being a Joozian," Stan insisted.

"What else would I rip on him for?"

Stan had heard enough. "Don't rip on him for anything!"

"That's so weak," Cartman groaned.

"I don't mind banter," Kyle chimed in. Kyle wanted people to be more familiar with him, not too mired in etiquette. He could hardly say he was immersed in their culture if he wasn't exposed to some bad behavior."He calls me a slimy Joozian, I call him an ignorant fatass. Friends talk like this to each other so that when they really hear it from an enemy, it' hurts less."

"That's an interesting theory," Stan patronized a bit.

Cartman remained defensive. "Who said we're friends?"

"I'm dating your friend," Kyle pointed out, "so at the least I'm in your social circle. I don't think someone as abrasive as you should be picky about offers for friendship."

Cartman clenched up his fists, leaning forward in his seat on the shuttle bench. "I have lots of friends!"

Kyle folded his inferior set of arms."Name one besides Stan or Kenny."

"Oh, me!" a crewmate with a blonde mohawk and powder blue uniform raised his hand, having been sitting a bit off to the side, tinkering with his commlink to message his Canadian girlfriend. "Hello! I'm Eric's friend and my name is Butters, nice to meet you! Eric could use more friends, even when he acts like he wants to be alone."

"Shut up, Butters."

"This shuttle isn't very full..." Kyle noticed.

"We're fashionably late, as usual," Kenny winked.

"Are we going to be in trouble?"

"I'll get the worst of it," Stan mumbled. "Kyle is our guest, and she knows you two are hopeless, so she won't say anything to either of you."

"Well that's not fair, Stan. I'll take full responsibility for making you late."

"Uh, I don't think she'd like to hear about that either."

Personal Log of Captain Wendy Testaburger Year 14 (2030), Month 10, Day 25.  
We are due to make the FTL jump at 0800 hours, bound to uncharted space in the vicinity of planet IX, system 732. Satellite surveillance in the area was lost due to some kind of electromagnetic interference, so we'll be dropping by to see what caused it, then we'll perform a survey of planet IX itself to fill in the blanks of the satellite's report. As for the Joozian exchange, I'll give him a tour pre-takeoff and write him into the survey team. The Docking Bay ID scanner just logged the usual suspects boarding late, with Kyle in tow. It is clear to my first mate that I feel protective of Stan, and I don't think that is unreasonable. I also feel protective of Kyle, albeit for a different reason. A night's fling does not a stable relationship make. Stan's stood on steadier ground than that and managed to stumble. Bebe is looking over my shoulder as I write this, as I often tell her not to be. Her suggestion for me to "chill" is duly noted, but ill-received. Relationships between crewmembers are complicated, and if Kyle wants to pursue his relationship with Stan, he'll have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else. If dating an officer of superior rank, they ought to be placed in a separate chain of command, or, in the case of Bebe and I, there are forms to be filed upon any relevant conflicts arising from rank. For example, if the 1st mate were to take a medal from the captain's sash and pin it to their own lapel when they thought I wasn't looking, normally she would need to be punished. As it stands, I'm just going to let her keep wearing it. My purple heart is as good as hers. If someone brings it to notice, she can fill out the form to explain why.

Breakfast was served in the mess hall at 0600 hours. There was decidedly less fanfare waiting for Kyle this time around, he'd been given an itinerary to meet with each specialized crew before take-off, so he'd be spared from another mosh pit of introductions. He was still the odd one out, with plenty of people to wave to, and more he hadn't met yet, but he was blending in marginally better with a uniform on. It looked like the color-coded teams typically sat together, but there were a few mixed groups like Stan's.

As Stan stood in the line for the replicator, Kyle asked, "Stan, are you eating a second breakfast?"

"I usually end up starving by lunch, so yeah I'll eat a bit extra."

"There are a lot of carbs and proteins there," Kyle read over the nutritional information displayed when Stan got to punch in his order.

"It's good, I'll work it out later. There's a shared gym space close to the living quarters and I go every day. Really everyone should, but that's up to them."

Kyle extended the conversation to Cartman, who was standing behind him in line. "Fatass, you don't work out with Stan?"

"Don't fucking call me that you J-" Cartman miraculously restrained himself, seething, "-J-jolly piece of shit! I work out with Stan all the time! I'm fucking ripped under all this padding. And you're one to talk. You've got four twiggy arms and a fat butt."

"Not as fat as yours," Kyle replied quickly. "I'm going to get second breakfast too."

Kenny joined in, "Stan always was an ass man."

Kyle tested out the recently-installed Joozian food cartridges on the mess hall's food replicator and returned with a sampler platter of breakfast goods for a little show and tell.

Stan reacted much as he had the night before, cringing and leaning away, wanting to stay in the cozy comfort of the foods he already knew.

"You don't want to try any?" Kyle asked Stan with a smile, lifting up the alien morsel on his fork- six legs, four pincers, and too many little eyes attached to a slippery-looking blue-green fish-thing. Stan covered his mouth with both hands and violently leaned away in his seat at the table as he picked up an oily odor off of it with a rank like kippered livers. Cartman had a similar reaction, vigorously shaking his head and pinching his nose.

"I'll eat it," Kenny shrugged and took the thing from Kyle, only to have the creature suddenly jerk to life, all legs kicking at once to the horror of unwary onlookers. Kenny stuffed the top-half of the thing into his mouth and bit down on the head. Its inferior pair of pincers snapped at air and the superior pair snapped at Kenny's cheeks. Kenny tugged the head off from the body in his teeth with such a violent motion that the thing's magenta-colored blood went gushing over his tray, with yellow guts unspooling out like wet noodles. Cartman fainted against Butters. Stan tasted a bit of vomit at the back of his throat, gagging. By the time Stan had finished heaving into a sickness bag and wiping his eyes, Kenny finished eating it. Stan thought about a third breakfast to replace the second, but he couldn't hack it at the moment.

Butters asked, "What did it taste like, Kenny?"

Kenny smacked and licked at his lips, clearing his palate with some water. He had to put a white bandage over his cheek where a pincer had managed to break the skin. He had a high tolerance for pain. "The snappy bits were not super pleasant, but the head reminded me of good eel, topped with eyes that taste like salmon roe- fresh as you can get it too. I'd eat another."

"It's a luxury item, you know. De-shelled Homardus Heptoculi from Gamma quadrant 21. I was surprised to find it programmed into the replicator. What would you trade me?" Kyle asked eagerly.

"You ever had a poptart? It's something of a luxury product too, you know."

Eric was just starting to come around, brushing away Butters from fanning his flushed face with a handkerchief. He mumbled in his sway upright, "poptarts are as trash as it gets, Kenny."

"Still a luxury to me."

Kyle was satisfied with the trade all the same. "I would love to try a poptart, it sounds fun to eat."

Kenny admitted, "It's not quite the same experience if you don't wait for it to pop up out of a toaster, but it's still pretty tasty."

Before Kyle had a chance to take a bite Cartman advised, "you should put some butter on it."

Kyle narrowed his eyes at Cartman with suspicion."That seems excessive."

"Trust me, put some butter on it."

Kyle received a little rectangular block of butter in gold-colored foil, turning it over in his fingers. "Didn't you just call poptarts trash?"

Cartman shrugged. "If you're going to go trash just go all the way."

"Words to live by," Kenny toasted, "thanks for the alien lobster-eel thing, Kyle."

Kyle spread butter over the warm poptart and took a bite, praising, "Mm! I mean, it's not as good as home-made pancakes, but it's very good in it's own way."

Cartman's face read nothing but betrayal, snapping toward Stan. "You made him pancakes?"

Stan promptly excused himself. "I'm going to help Kyle find the bridge so he can report to Wendy."

The portability of the poptart helped Kyle walk and eat, but he did get drips of butter on his fingers and a trail of crumbs behind him on the way to the turbolift.

As the lift quietly hissed in its vertical and horizontal propulsion toward the bridge, Kyle complained, "I have butter on my fingers."

"Lick it off?"

Kyle thought it titillating but promptly objected for the sake of hygiene."That would be gross."

Stan took up Kyle's hand and made purposeful eye contact. Responding to a permissive nod, he licked and suckled at the tips of Kyle's fingers. Kyle had to admit he enjoyed doing gross things with Stan. They were allowed but one brief, tantalizing kiss against the far wall of the turbolift before it came to a stop at its destination on the bridge. Six arms untangling at once between the two of them, separating just before the lift's doors did. Stan rode the lift back down to his station, and Kyle proceeded onto the Streisand's bridge.

The bridge is effectively the operation center of the ship. The forward bulkhead dominates half of the circular room with a concave viewing screen, currently overlaid with diagnostic pre-flight information. Control consoles dominated the other half of the room, with the captain's chair and flight console in the center, depressed into the floor. The design of it all looked very dated to Kyle.

"There you are," Wendy sighed with relief upon the Joozian's approach, gesturing to introduce him to a male crewman in a black uniform, with blonde hair in a feminine bob cut style. "Kyle, this is Pip Pirrup. He leads the Stewards and reports to Gregory. They handle general inventory and cleaning on the ship. Since you're a bit late, I don't know that we have time for their part of the tour before we make the scheduled jump."

"Oh, Captain, is there really no time?" Pip politely protested, "I've had the team rehearse a musical number you see, and-"

"-There certainly isn't time for that," Wendy dismissed before noticing an alert from the viewscreen. "Excuse me, I'll be right back. Your introduction will have to be complete by that time."

"Well, a spot of bad luck, wouldn't you say?" Pip sighed and tried to put on a stiff upper lip. "I hope I haven't built up any kind of grand expectations. If you see a crewmember in a black uniform, you'll know it's a steward keeping this ship ship-shape from the shadows!"

Kyle was directed to look at his PDA by Pip who continued introductions at a break-neck pace. "If you'll open your crew directory here I can show you some pictures." He flicked through them one after the other, allowing only brief glances that in theory should be registered by his brain, but would be promptly forgotten upon a proper meeting. "Here's Scott, Tripply, Filmore, Flora, Sarah, and Sally- they work the day shift. Here's Damien, Henrietta, Peter, Micheal, and Firkle. I work with them on the night shift." The difference between staff was indeed as stark as day and night. Everyone on night shift aside from Pip looked miserable. "As a rule of thumb, sort any personal rubbish into their proper disposals, but leave most anything else to us. If you hear this note," Pip blew harshly on a whistle retrieved from his pocket to simulate the actual alarm, "that means there's a gas leak. There are a few other tones you should listen for, it's how I got the idea for the song, you see. It really was a proper production that I had planned and hoped to show you-"

"-Alright, back to business," Wendy burst back into the scene after diffusing some issue, leading the alien away from Pip. "Kyle, as you can see, we are standing on the bridge. If I'm not up here making orders, Bebe is." She walked Kyle from the left side of the bridge's console stations to the right, introducing crewmembers in succession.

"Nicole is in charge of communications, routing all departmental issues, hailing incoming messages, and relaying with away-team during survey."

Kyle had met Nicole the night before at the bar. He felt a bit guilty not remembering her name right away, but at that time he had been not-so-subtly making his way toward Stan to ask him out. She had a friendly smile, brown skin, and coiled black hair loosely held in a band behind her head.

"Craig is our Navigator, working closely with the pilots and the engineers to ensure our FTL jump is as safe as possible." Wendy awkwardly presented each person and their station as its own exhibit for Kyle to look upon. Craig looked disinterestedly at Kyle with steely blue eyes, shaking his hand. He looked a little like Stan, but his face was more gaunt and his aura was less warm, his coarse, black hair better-kempt, and his lips a bit thinner.

Wendy swept an arm toward the center of the bridge, so Kyle stopped staring at Craig and followed along with Wendy. "We have two of our pilots on the bridge this morning. Token is the lead pilot for today, with Clyde acting as co-pilot. Kenny pilots the night shift and usually flies the shuttle for survey missions."

Kyle got a brief nod and a wave from Token and Clyde respectively, they were busy at their consoles. Token had dark brown skin, toned physique, and a hairstyle faded by the ears that built up to a flat plane on top. Clyde was a smudgy, pale, pudgy, and poorly-kempt brunette. His clumsy laughter at a smooth quip from Token showed them to be chummy with each other.

"Speaking of survey missions," Wendy segued, "I was wondering if you might want to join, if the opportunity presented itself."

"Certainly," Kyle consented.

"Wonderful." Wendy took her seat in the Captain's chair. "I'm going to pass you off to Bebe, who will be taking you through Security. We have your relevant files sorted with them and the medical team, but there is some additional screening, standard for any new crewmember."

"I understand."

Bebe pulled Kyle's attention from a turbolift just arriving at the bridge, waving for him to join her inside. On their way, Bebe slyly struck up a pointed conversation.

"So, you and Stan, huh? How is that going?"

"I think it's going good."

"That's so cool!" Bebe cheered, "I'd love to hear the details!"

Kyle had heard from Stan that Bebe was something of a gossip. "Oh, we just talked mostly."

"Mostly, huh?" Bebe teased. "I just want you to know I'm rooting for you! Really go for it and don't worry about a thing!"

"Really?"

"Sure, you should follow your heart!"

"Why are you rooting for me?"

"I like your style, the way you just went for it!"

"It's not my style," Kyle blurted defensively. "It was out of character for me to have approached him like I did. Even if it's going good now, I'm worried I pushed Stan into this."

"Stan's probably worried too," Bebe consoled, "you can talk it out, and do what feels right."

"Thanks, Bebe."

"No, oh my god, are you listening to me?" Bebe scoffed at herself. "I'll stop giving you unsolicited love advice."

"I might solicit it sometime." Gossip or not, he got the sense that she was wise when it came to love.

"Anyway," Bebe downplayed their tender moment, pointing manicured red nails like laser sights at her co-workers' stations as they entered her workspace. Surveillance console, lock-up, armory, scanners. The décor was saturated with dangerous-looking equipment and polished metals. "Here's Intel and Security. The name is pretty self-explanatory, right? Cartman is probably still in mess hall having a third breakfast, but this is Cristophe, Patty, Lizzy, Rayne, Jessica, and Petuski."

They had interrupted something of a meeting, where the members all drank coffee and fiddled with a stun baton or a ballistic ranged weapon, which Kyle was not used to seeing. The one named Christophe was polishing a shovel, further straining Kyle with perturbation. Why did he need a shovel? A tired 'hello' from these people was more than enough interaction for Kyle at the time being. He hoped that they did not all think about aliens the way Cartman did.

"Wendy probably wants me back up on the bridge soon." Bebe led Kyle away after he turned down an offering of coffee, back to the turbolift. "You can follow the colored stripes on the floor to find the hub of whatever department you're looking for, same color code as the uniforms, but I'll lead you to Engineering- it's kind of a mess down there. You decided that's where you want to work?"

"I don't want to be a distraction to Stan. Or vice versa."

Kyle scrolled through the crew directory for the members of the Engineering team. Names and faces duly noted, hopefully recalled later when needed. Kevin, Tweek, Annie, Baahir, David, Timmy, Jimmy, Ashley, Charlotte, Estella, Lisa, Terrence, Thomas, Yao, and Leslie.

"Engineering takes up the most room and resources-" Bebe explained, peeking over Kyle's shoulder. "The FTL drive, propulsion, life support, main computers- just check in with Leslie, then you can visit Counselor Marsh in Medical."

Kyle began to object, "I'm not-"

Bebe wouldn't hear it, dropping off Kyle in the heart of the Engineering Lab. "Right, you're not counting down the minutes until you see Stan again, I got you. You're very serious about your work. You'll get a medal for your dedication and chastity soon enough. Later, Kyle."

All of the slouching, crouching, and stooping engineers at their consoles paid Kyle little mind. Where was his station? What should he do now? He turned around in place, unsure, before something bumped into his right leg. He turned to see a fellow engineer in a wheelchair with a gummy, asymmetrical smile and receding orange hair.

The engineer's tightly-clutched fist released the chair's guidance control-stick and moved to tap on a large keypad, soon issuing a digitized voice from a speaker console. "Timmy!"

"My name is Kyle."

Some of the better socialized engineers moved to introduce themselves as Timmy broke the ice. A good thing too, because Kyle was having difficulty communicating. He asked the first person to approach after Timmy, a grinning brunette limberly propelling himself on forearm-crutches, "Why does he keep saying 'Timmy'?"

"His text-to-voice module has been acting up all morning. We're just so busy getting the ship ready to g-" the engineer stuttered over the next harsh syllable, punching at it a few times with try-again utterances before saying instead, "-so busy getting the ship ready to leave, that we haven't had the time to fix it. You probably figured by now his name is Timmy. My name is Jimmy. It's nice to meet you, Kyle."

Timmy interjected, "Timmy! 'Livin' a Lie', Timmy!"

"It's nice to meet you, Timmy."

The trio turned their heads as the chief engineer approached and feigned clearing her throat to get their attention."Back to work, if you don't mind. We are on a strict schedule." Having scattered the gathering, she addressed the newcomer. "Hello again, Kyle."

"Hi, Leslie."

"I have been told that you requested a posting on the Engineering team. As our only credited xenobiologist, is there a reason you did not join the Medical team instead?"

"Oh, I just...Figured I'd have more work to do." Kyle skirted.

"I see. I thought you might have done that to avoid a hearing regarding a co-worker relationship."

"I'm not avoiding anything," Kyle frowned, bothered by her aloof tone. "If there needs to be a hearing, that's fine."

"I think that would be for the best. Do request the form during your tour of the Medical wing. And don't tarry too long. There is work to do."

"Alright."

Kyle was glad to leave. He was torn between working under Stan, which would be distracting and potentially problematic if it didn't work out for the year, and working under Leslie, who he now found to be insufferable. On the turbolift ride from Engineering to Medical, Kyle recorded his thoughts to his personal log.

Personal Log of Kyle Broflovski, Day 1 of Exchange Program  
Joozian-Human relations are...complicated. That's what my father always said, and sometimes I can't help but say it too. It's complicated. Earth was one of Fognl's many "Programmed Reality Broadcasts", where a diverse culture of animals and sentients were left on an isolated planet to develop under observation as a form of entertainment. The humans of Earth eventually discovered the "visitors" recording them, which led to the Earth program being canceled. The planet was set to be demolished and strip-mined for resources and merchandise. It all sounds so cruel, but humans were classified as lesser beings that were not legally afforded the same rights as more advanced civilizations. Because Earth was such a popular program, there was a public outcry to the cancellation. It was the first time I actually wanted to help my mom, to lobby for a cause together. My father was one of the lawyers representing the humans of Earth in a lawsuit against the network. We couldn't keep the program or the planet, but the races of Earth were given new protections and a settlement was made to pay for their relocation. The next step for humans is to join the Intergalactic community, to be recognized as equals. My family became the first Joozians to adopt a human as a family member, and I'll be one of the first "aliens" volunteering to work alongside a human survey crew. It is of the utmost importance that I ingratiate myself with the members of the Streisand and bring home a report showing positively that we can co-exist to our mutual benefit.

"We shouldn't be doing this during a consultation." Stan grunted with token resistance to Kyle straddling him in his office, recapturing the mood from their kiss in the turbolift in no time at all.

"I know, you're right. But where does the counselor go for a consultation?" Kyle had been getting bored of the screening questions and was having a bit of fun was all. However, Stan didn't have an answer to his teasing, underlying an actual issue. "Maybe you could talk to me, if there was something bothering you," Kyle suggested, wanting to get past whatever formality they have to.

"This is your scheduled consultation," Stan argued.

"Well, Dr. Marsh, I feel great. Nothing to report. How about you?"

Stan is a frequent victim of his own double-thinking. There's something inside of him that critiques him, demands of him certain things, to be a certain way. "I'm worried that our relationship is a conflict of interest for me counseling you."

"I trust you," Kyle assured. "Don't worry about asking me questions as a counselor, just ask as yourself."

"What is your romantic history?"

Kyle chuckled and unwound himself from Stan to find his own seat. He had wanted to ask that last night, so he was both ready and willing to answer now. "When I was 10, I kissed a girl a few times. Her brother assaulted me and she went on to kiss other people. More recently, I had a crush on a synthetic life-form with the appearance of a human female. We went on a date, but by the end of it I realized she was just leading me on. I've had physical interests and romantic crushes toward males and never acted on them."

"You approached me very openly," Stan said, as if this were a contradiction to his previous statement.

Kyle tried on a shrug for size, deeming it appropriate. "I told you why."

"Because you find me attractive?"

"Not just attractive," Kyle pointed out. "Like we shared the same atoms once."

Stan didn't seem to be familiar with the phrase.

"It's an alien idiom. I mean I felt some kind of longing when I first saw you. What did you feel?"

"I felt like shit. I mean, before you approached me. When you did I could hardly believe it. That whole date I was trying to think of a way to let you down easy."

"What changed?"

"Now I don't want to be apart from you. I wish I had always known you. It's not happening too fast, is it?"

"Some bonds are formed fast," Kyle reasoned, like two atoms trying to find a balance. For answering, now Kyle got to ask, "what is your romantic history?"

"The Captain was my first girlfriend. We've been on and off. She presented as male for a time, which made me question my orientation, but I didn't have anyone to figure that out with."

"Why didn't it work between you and Wendy?" Kyle didn't want to dwell on it, but he had to admit that Stan and Wendy would probably have a perfect child if they mated.

"I think that when we were kids, we both thought we were fated to be together. She stopped believing it, and after a while I stopped believing it too."

"That's uh, sad," Kyle mumbled. Based on what he knew about them he could see Stan not keeping up with Wendy's drive, but when she wasn't busy they must have got along together very well.

"Staying together when we knew it wouldn't work, that would have been sad." It sounded like a wound with a scar that would stick around.

"You stayed on her ship though."

"All of my friends are on this ship," Stan confirmed. "Wendy and I have things worked out, I think."

"I asked for her permission to ask you out," Kyle groaned with sudden realization, smacking a palm to his forehead.

"Speaking of awkward, we have to fill out some paperwork and possibly talk to a higher-up about the nature of our relationship." Stan pulled out the necessary forms to attach to his notes, only to have them snatched away by Kyle.

"I can handle that." Kyle skimmed through the papers and tapped Stan's pen against the clipboard. "Let's see. Names. Kyle Broflovski and Stan Marsh. Duration of relationship prior to form signage. Less than 24 hours. Comments. Stan, you felt hesitant because of your administrative position, but remained open to a relationship after a mutually enjoyed date that was sanctioned by the CO. "

"I should probably be writing that," Stan tugged at his collar, feeling a stuffy heat come over him.

"Kyle fell in love with Stan at first sight, and after the date consented to intimate relations, which were also mutually enjoyed. Stan's knowledge of xenobiology is lacking, but he is a studious and sensitive lover."

"Dude, you can't write that in an official document!"

Kyle smiled, his body lifting upward with mirth. Stan called him a dude. "Any comments you'd like to add?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"During relations, Kyle spent an inordinate amount of time stimulating the testes."

"Well, Stan could use a shave."

"I'm redacting all of this."

"That would just look suspicious, Stan. There are enough human-alien relation documents loaded with redaction as it is." He handed the papers back and checked the time. "I've got to get back to Engineering. I'm going to be working there, I think. That way you don't have to worry."

"See you. You'll probably want to introduce yourself to the rest of the medical staff next time instead of making a beeline for my office..."

"Oops." Kyle endured some awkwardness on his trip back to Engineering from Medical.

A disheveled engineer with a bird's nest of blonde hair and dark circles under his eyes practically throttled Kyle on arrival."There you are! Oh, thank god! You and your brother were supposed to be down here helping at least 30 minutes ago!"

"Where's Ike?"

"I don't know! Jesus christ, I don't have time to look for him! If I don't have the FTL drive synched with the coordinates before 0800 hours Wendy is going to kill me, and if I don't synch the FTL drive with the coordinates flawlessly, we're all going to die!"

"Wendy isn't going to kill you, let's take our time and figure it out."

Kyle helped the nervous wreck beside him crunch numbers, working around their archaic console under some quiet desperation until Ike casually announced himself from behind them.

"Hi Kyle, hi Tweek."

"Ike! What the fuck, man!?" Tweek shook and tugged at his own hair.

Kyle chastised, "Ike, you shouldn't show up to work late."

"That's true. Are we ready to make the jump? Wendy wants to know."

"We'll be ready"

"Are you sure?" Tweek bit his lip. "The computer has only run the simulation eight hundred times! Eleven-hundred is the optimum number of simulations to bin all outliers from the packet exchange through projected quantum tunnel plots!

"You're really overstating the risk here, that's a total loss of less than one percent..."

"Zero-point-five-nine percent! Try losing 0.59 percent of your body, tell me if I'm overstating the risk!"

"We all lose negligible amounts like that overtime." Kyle scooted aside for Ike to put fresh eyes on their numbers, trying to calm Tweek. "The loss isn't centralized, the most that will happen is a little paint getting atomized off the hull. Do you always try to get synch numbers this high?"

"Yes! Wendy's not going to accept anything lower!"

"That's...Really impressive, but you're stressing yourself out too much. Ike, I need to get word to Wendy."

Ike pulled himself from the numbers and sent word to Nicole. "Kyle's synced the FTL drive, tell Wendy we're ready to go."

Despite the OK, Wendy messaged directly via Ike's commlink, "Kyle, how does it look?"

"Targeted jump coordinates locked in."

"Alright. Make sure your alerts are on, I may call you to the bridge later."

"...She's okay with these synch percentages?" Tweek strained his eyes, darting from number set to number set.

"Really anything above 97.6% should be fine," Kyle waved off.

"It's not different for Joozians and humans?" Tweek asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Kyle mumbled before Tweek's alarm led him to append, "I mean, it's fine! Really!"

"Coffee." Tweek staggered away from his console. "I'm going to get coffee."

"Does he need more?" Kyle eyed the empty glass caraffe on Tweek's desk.

"He just says that when he needs to get away." Ike pilfered a donut from Tweek's desk. "But he does drink too much coffee. I'm heading up to the bridge to watch the jump. Do you want to come?"

"I'm just going to try getting settled, thanks Ike." Kyle leaned back in his seat, thinking of setting up his desk and texting Stan. Getting his office supplies and personal desk effects from one of the stewards, Kyle made some progress making himself feel more at home before he was interrupted by a scrape and a stutter behind him.

"Hi there, Kyle. Not too busy to talk?"

"What's on your mind, Jimmy?"

"Well, Leslie suggested that I think of something to ask you, to facilitate a cultural exchange. I thought I'd ask if you could tell me a joke."

It's not easy to recall a joke on the spot, but Jimmy waited patiently as long as Kyle needed to come up with one. "My father sounds really strange when he sneezes. Do you know what he sounds like?"

"What does he sound like?" Jimmy asked.

"A-Joozian!"

"Wow, that is really funny, Kyle." Jimmy gave a toohy grin but did not laugh. Kyle thought that was fair enough. "I feel very enlightened. Some jokes are truly universal."

Kyle wanted to get back to arranging succulents on his desk. "Nice talking to you, Jimmy."

Leslie's voice carried over speakers in the engineering lab. "We're making the FTL jump shortly. For your safety, please find a seat and remain as still as possible. You'll know the jump is completed when the lights come back on."

Everyone on board braced themselves at their stations with the lights out. It was a disquieting feeling to travel faster than light. A feeling of time and space dilating and contracting at once, jumping from the crest of one rolling wave of gravity to another. Figments of light popping into your view in darkness accompanied by roaring static was common during, but at times could intensify into visual and auditory hallucinations as the mind suffocated for stimuli in a moment split between ending and beginning. This heightened perception of cosmic illusion, known as Persistent Ganzfeld Syndrome, resulted in hallucinations persisting after a finished jump. It effected 1 out of 100 even at high synch percentages. Once the lights were back on, a post-jump roll call had to be taken to account for anyone that needed treatment. In most cases, those afflicted are able to sleep it off and not recall their visions, but after such an experience, many develop anxiety over consequent jumps.

During post-jump roll call, Tweek Tweak and Kyle Broflovski were found unresponsive and moved to the infirmary.


	4. Chapter 4

"Stan?"

Kyle was in bed, with Stan looking down at him. It felt like he had traveled back in time to the night before, but there were a number of conflicts between his memory and his present surroundings.

"Kyle. Are you alright?" Stan looked relieved of some great worry.

This was new for Kyle. His brain felt like it had been shut down improperly and rebooted in safe mode, missing unsaved date. What he remembered was roaring dark, a glimpse of annihilation. "Was it PGS?"

"Yeah."

He needn't dwell on the memory any more, but it proved a struggle to let go. "How long have I been out for?"

"Thirty-two hours."

"That's an unusually long amount of time." Kyle tried to remain calm, looking at the wall, squeezing Stan's hand, becoming more aware of it in his grasp. "Were you worried?"

"Yeah." Stan bowed his head a moment, thankful for the wait to be over. "Are you having trouble remembering anything?"

"Besides the names of most of the people on this ship, I think I remember everything. Did anyone else on the ship go under?"

"Tweek did."

"I should have let him do the syncing his own way." Kyle murmured under a weight of guilt. He'd disturbed the ritual and brought bad luck. "I thought I could make it less stressful for him. What now?"

After a basic physical check-up, during which Stan remained professional, despite Kyle's goading to indulge otherwise, the two of them took the turbolift to the ship's small gymnasium. Original alien schematics reserve the space for water tanks, preferred sleeping space for the architects. Kyle asked again about the bath aboard the ship, and if there were any water tanks. The one proper bath on the ship was in the Captain's private quarters. Extra water tanks were being used to cycle coolant, collect specimens, or run medical tests. The rest of the crew used shower stalls. Seeing Kyle's disappointment, Stan hoped to raise his spirits with a game he enjoyed.

On request, one of the stewards had cleaned and waxed the wooden flooring, made to respond to running shoes with cheery squeaking, reflecting light off its polished surface. Stan and Kyle greeted Kenny and Cartman, who were already dribbling a basketball to produce a thunderous, echoing percussion bouncing off the walls.

"No way." Cartman divined Stan's intentions right away. "Joozians can't play basketball!"

"Why not?" Kyle asked.

"You've got four arms! That's bullshit!"

"Like I need them."

Stan cut them off from arguing further. "We're just going to play horse for now. Kyle needs to take it easy."

"Horseplay, huh?" Kenny reached for the innuendo. "Like, Stan puts on a saddle, and Kyle puts on a ten-gallon hat?"

"Joozians can't be cowboys either!"

The banter continued late into the game of horse. Half of the fun of the game was trying to mess up each others' shots by screaming whatever obscenities came to mind. Late into the game, they were interrupted by Wendy and Bebe, checking in on the court from their game of racquetball a room over. Bebe challenged Kenny to three minutes of one-on-one, leaving Wendy to speak to Stan and Kyle.

Wendy said the obvious, "Kyle, I am so relieved."

Kyle didn't want to dwell on it. "I missed that survey while I was out, didn't I? I was looking forward to it."

"There will be another tomorrow, if you're of good health." Wendy offered, "We could use your expertise."

"I'm fine to go, really. Tell her, Stan." Kyle needled at Stan with two elbows at once.

"He should be fine," Stan winced.

Behind them, during their conversation, Kenny's smoking habit caught up to him, with Bebe outpacing and dunking on him to the sound of Cartman's jeering. Wendy moved to the next point of order. "Are you two ready for your interview concerning your relationship?"

"Interview?" Kyle struggled to recall.

"Normally you just have a word with HR going over your formal request to have a workplace relationship, but the Principal at the Academy has decided he wants to be involved. Please call him from the holodeck adjoining the bridge as soon as you can. I'll leave you to it."

Wendy then left Stan and Kyle to establish a two-on-two pick-up game. Since she and Bebe against Cartman and Kenny would result in a steamroll, they'd have to put Cartman on Wendy's team and Kenny on Bebe's.

Figuring that it would be best to get it over with, Stan and Kyle went at once to the bridge to use the holodeck and hail the Academy's Principal for a short-lived interview, navigated by smiling and nodding when appropriate. Charles walked himself through it for the most part. Stan did end up redacting some of the more embarrassing details from the document with a thick black marker before sending it in, leaving little for the principal to comment on; not that that kept him from talking at length until he was satisfied.

"Kyle, Stan, thank you for joining me on this holo-conference. All of the paperwork is in order. Though, it looks like it was filed two days ago. We've had some trouble reaching you. Is this still in good-standing?"

Both Stan and Kyle affirmed, "Yes, Principal Charles."

"Well, on behalf of the Academy I just want to applaud you two for your bravery and wish you the best. That said, we don't have much medical data on a relationship like yours- have either of you experienced any side-effects as a result of bodily contact or exchanging fluids?"

Stan and Kyle looked at each other. Kyle answered, "no."

"Alright, thank you, Kyle. I apologize if my asking made you at all uncomfortable. I hope to keep in touch. Bye for now."

The de-saturated, pixelated hologram of the principal and his desk blinked away, leaving the officially-sanctioned couple alone in the bare, dimly-lit holo-conference room.

Stan asked Kyle, "you don't think getting PGS was worth mentioning?"

"No, there's no way that's related." Kyle was so quick to deny he hadn't fully considered it. He crossed his arms and chewed on his bottom lip, deep in thought. 

"I think you ought to rest some more," Stan suggested.

"That's fine," Kyle consented. He picked his battles, but he had a way of winning even when he surrendered. "Rest with me."

Minding protocol less now that their relationship was a documented thing, Stan excused Kyle from work and then excused himself to 'look after Kyle'. Specifically, Stan looked after a faceful of red hair, spooning with Kyle in bed. Stan was the big spoon because the age-old problem of the big spoon's arm going numb under the little spoon was twice as bad for Kyle. They hadn't turned the light on once from the point they entered Stan's room to the point they were under covers in bed. What Kyle had seen, when light from the hall briefly flooded through the opening door before closing again, had been piles of 'personal rubbish' that Stan seemed at once acquainted with and oblivious of. He knew where to step around the dirty clothes and exercise equipment, where to transfer the reams of paper littered on his unmade bed, but seemed unaware that this was a strange way to keep house. Kyle said that Stan ought to pick up, and kept Stan to his word when he sleepily mumbled 'in the morning' before falling asleep.

All of the junk in Stan's room made for something of an archaeological project for Kyle. You can learn a lot about someone when they don't curate their possessions, letting otherwise ephemeral physical memories accumulate. From the start, Kyle had to be shooed away from the client-confidential year-old papers Stan filled out as a counselor. Stan preferred writing with pen and paper, but had long run out of filing space in his office. Those papers were set aside. Suspicious arts & crafts materials were set aside; paint-fouled toothbrushes, a zip-loc bag of wine corks, rocks, pressed leaves, and a staggering amount of wood-backed rubber stamps for every occasion. Three different guitars in various states of repair had to be put aside. Most everything was set aside.

"Guess there's not much we can do," Kyle shrugged.

Stan felt a bit guilty. He threw out the bag of wine corks and sent along his dirty clothes for the stewards to clean. Kyle was glad at that minor victory and Stan was relieved.

What had Kyle learned?

"You have a hard time letting go," Kyle summarized, getting pop-tart crumbs on Stan's bed as Stan reset the mangled strings of a pale tan guitar.

"Yeah," Stan conceded. "But it's easier now."

"How's that...?" Kyle asked Stan, getting goosebumps watching him pluck at his instrument.

"I'm holding on to you now."

Kyle moved to hug Stan. "Is that a song?"

"Not yet," Stan said promisingly.

Personal Log of Captain Wendy Testaburger Year 14 (2030), Month 10, Day 28.  
It's just as well that Kyle missed the first day of the survey. Planet IX is mostly ice, largely barren of surface flora and fauna. Evidently, it was one of the choices for humans to settle to, but as it turned out, it was only hospitable to humans in the warmest three months of the year, and only at its equator, so it's gone unexplored. We'll be doing a second survey today, blasting and drilling to collect samples under the ice, leaving before the night chills. I am grateful to see snow again, as I had wished, but I am finding it hard to settle myself in the moment and truly enjoy it; all I can think of is that it will soon be gone again.

Bebe nudged Wendy, crowded onto a shuttle departing from the Streisand for the surface of Planet IX. "Captain, maybe we should bring more people on the 'survey'. You're not the only one who wants to play in the snow."

"It's not playing!" Wendy tapped into Communications. "Nicole, we're surveying the Earth-like Winter planet today. If anyone wants to join us they can report to Security for an escort down."

Among them already on the shuttle was Kenny acting as pilot, Kyle as xeno-biologist, Stan as geologist/nurse to Kyle, and Leslie as the engineer responsible for the drilling equipment.

Nicole reported to Wendy, "There's a strong turn-out for volunteers looking to join you on the surface."

"Send them down, but leave at least one shuttle in the bay," Wendy instructed.

Communications had become something of a problem in the area around the downed satellite. Enormous encrypted signals regularly overwhelmed their equipment. Kyle and Leslie each suggested that it could be of purposeful alien design, but the system was supposed to be free of such signal pollution. They sent word to the Academy hoping to clear it up, but they had yet to respond. Aside from gathering rock samples, Wendy intended to divine the origin of the signal herself.

The shuttle settled at the base of a great and gently sloping snowy mountain, an inactive volcano according to Stan. It formed the highest point of a mountainous continental island in the center of an ice floe oceanic in scale. Wind played hums and whistles down the crags of the mountain like a needle dragging in the pits of a spinning vinyl record, scoring the light show of electrons shifting energy states above them in the planet's atmosphere, releasing light photons that danced in swirling ribbons of sea-foam green. This captured everyone's attention, save for Stan and Leslie. Leslie moved to attend to the drilling station at once, and Stan moved to block Kyle from exiting the shuttle.

"The atmosphere is breathable, but it's a very dry cold, you'll want to keep your helmet on or else your skin will crack."

"Thanks, Mom," Kyle laughed, sealing himself up in his suit with a helmet. "you must be reading the Joozian biology book I gave you after all."

Wendy rolled her eyes, thinking of all the books Stan had received from her that went unread, "It's a miracle."

Bebe laughed, but caught a look from Wendy, because she was just as bad as Stan about not reading the books lent to her.

As additional volunteers landed to join the survey team, far from frolicking in the snow, they broke thick ice with explosives and drilled through the breach, bringing up fragments of strata to be sorted. In one of the drill sites, Stan identified a breach that could potentially lead to a cave system under the mountain, but Wendy opted to save its exploration for another day, allowing for the crew to take in the nostalgic sight of snowfall.

Stan scooped his hand over the powdery ground. "I used to eat snow a lot when I was younger. Then I found out it was mostly polluted. Is it safe to eat here?"

Kenny reported, "Yeah, it's good," helmet off and tongue out.

Kyle looked up a bit bitterly as the fanciful patterns of individual snowflakes landed on his helmet and melted.

Escorting the volunteer crew, Cartman ribbed Kyle. "Looks like the Joozian can't eat snow."

Kyle told Cartman that he could eat all he liked, and lobbed a handful of snow in his face. Cartman vainly returned fire, only to have the snow spatter against Kyle's helmet. Like human wars of old, the conflict spread. Stan threw at Cartman, Kenny threw at Stan, Bebe threw at Kenny, Kenny threw at Bebe but missed, hitting Wendy instead, who mistook Bebe as her attacker and retaliated. The entire company became engaged in the gaiety of a free-for-all snowball fight without having known what started it.

As the fight wore on, Kyle and Leslie noticed something strange overtake the rest of the crew. Levels of whooping laughter, rosy cheeks, and stumbling through the snow exceeded acceptable levels. Accuracy of thrown snowballs plummeted. Kenny Mccormick turned away from the others in the middle of the melee to urinate in the snow. Stan staggered and fell against Kyle, bumping his head on Kyle's clear bubble helmet in an attempt to kiss him. Bebe was similarly against Wendy, knocking off her beret, no helmet in her way.

"Stan, are you okay?" Kyle laughed, he'd never seen him quite this jolly.

"Yeah, everything's great...! Isn't it? Are you okay?" Stan clutched with concern before grimacing and puking in the snow.

"Captain." Leslie struggled to shift Wendy's attention from Bebe.

"What...? What is it?" Wendy grumbled, not thinking anyone had been paying attention to her necking with her girlfriend.

"You're drunk," Leslie stated.

Wendy and Bebe squinted up at her.

"You're drunk," Bebe accused in retaliation, only to burst out in snorting laughter.

"Oh, fuck me, we're completely drunk," Wendy realized, sitting upright, buttoning up her winter coat once Bebe had withdrawn her hand from the inside of it. "Everyone's drunk?" Her joy bled from her seeing Stan puking in the snow under a rapidly darkening sky.

"The previous survey's samples of snow are clean, but I believe some natural phenomena infused today's local snowfall with alcohol. As a synthetic, I am unaffected. Similarly, Kyle has remained sober by keeping his helmet on," Leslie explained.

Kyle dragged Stan over to Wendy, "Captain, Stan isn't feeling well..."

"We need to return to the ship for detoxification," said Wendy, putting on her best sober face.

"Detoxification?" Kyle asked with alarm.

"He'll be just fine," Wendy assured. "Please help Stan to the shuttle." Wendy waited for Kyle to leave before asking Leslie, "the shuttle's auto-pilot can take us back to the ship, can't it?"

"Essentially. However, the local signal pollution phenomena has disrupted our communications with the Streisand. Unable to access the home server, the shuttle's on-board auto-pilot functions are limited to assisting in take-off and landing in-dock. I will enter the coordinates of the Streisand manually, and then the shuttle needs to be flown in range of the ship."

Wendy sent Kyle and Leslie ahead, each piloting a full shuttle as designated drivers to the drunken crew. This left Wendy, Bebe, Kenny, Cartman, and Red behind. "We're losing light. How is Kenny?"

Bebe strapped Kenny and the others into passenger seats, shaking her head. "I got him before he could try pulling off his flightsuit, but he's way too out of it."

Wendy took a deep breath and took the controls of the shuttle. "You've got this, Wendy."

The auto-pilot assisted in taking off, and with the end coordinate set, Wendy just had to keep the shuttle level until they were in range for the auto-pilot to be restored. Getting back to the ship turned out to be the easy part. Getting it back under her control would prove more difficult.

Nicole messaged Wendy, "Captain, there's an incoming communication from the Academy for you waiting in the bridge."

Wendy tottered in her boots, stumbled to hold herself against the wall, dragging along it to the turbolift to reach the bridge, commanding over her shoulder, "Bebe! Secure the drunks!"

"Captain!" Nicole rose from her seat upon Wendy's arrival running to catch her mid-stumble. "Leslie told us what happened. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Wendy leaned on Nicole to find her way to her seat, feeling the room tilt and whirl around her. "Open communication with the Academy."

"Hello to everyone aboard the Streisand," Principal Charles greeted. "I'd just like to congratulate you all for your courage to participate in this bold social experiment. You have shown your guest human kindness, hospitality, and camaraderie. Next, for the purpose of the Program, you are to demonstrate human-style democracy with an election for the executive position of Commanding Officer, effective immediately, for a trial term of one month's surveys. Best of luck to you all."

No one is going to entertain this farce, Wendy thought to herself. Much to her dismay, the farce entertained, and so it was entertained in kind.

Bebe, Leslie, Gregory, Nicole, Token, and Kyle were placed on the ballots after collecting the most signatures. One of them would get a shot at ousting the current captain with a vote.

Wendy refused to watch the proceedings. She retreated to her cabin to try and sober up as much as possible, taking a cold shower and draining a pitcher of water. This unfortunately did nothing to abate her drunkenness. She collapsed over her bed , hair soaking wet over her pillow, the towel around her torso coming undone.

She'd have slept through it all if Bebe hadn't come for her, shaking her shoulder, slurring instructions, trying to dress her back up.

"Who's left? Who am I running against?" Wendy asked. As soon as Bebe confirmed that it was Kyle, she tried to lurch out of bed, but had forgotten that she had taken off the prosthesis acting as her right leg below the knee, so Bebe had to catch her from falling and get her to the bathroom in time to heave into the toilet, holding back her hair. The rest of the night faded into a void of black.

Wendy slept half the next day through, waking up in Bebe's quarters. She'd been moved out. Kyle had been voted into her position.

"Someone has to be fucking with me, this isn't real..." Wendy planted both hands over her face, with the digital display of an alarm clock burning her eyes like the fallout of a nuclear warhead. Worse still, Eric Cartman came banging on the door, shouting for her. Wendy did not wish to speak to him, because at this point in time, she was ready to believe in a theory that this was some kind of Independence Day meets the Beer Hall Putsch scenario, and not that her crew had voted her out of captaincy.

"Cartman, fuck off," Wendy croaked.

"What are you going to do about this, Wendy!? I told you this would happen, and you didn't listen to me! The Joozian has taken over!"

"I said fuck off, Cartman!" Wendy writhed and cupped her hands over her ears.

"When you're ready to wrest control back from that slimy xeno, you tell me, I've still got your back!"

"God damn it."

Wendy dressed herself, feeling like she'd lost the captain's seat over her own motor functions, left to the whims of a bunch of buzzing, inebriated bees jabbing at her brain. Remnants of the toxin sloshed in her ears, kept the room tilted like a fun house. She had to find Kyle.

"Captain to Bridge," Wendy grumbled into her Commlink. Silence. She'd lost Comm privileges. Pacing in the dark of Bebe's room, she tried again. "Communications, connect me to Officer Stevens."

Bebe excused herself from the bridge to meet with Wendy. "Wendy, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Wendy felt a fresh wave of vertigo, moving like a riptide to send her sprawling back over the bed. "Awful."

"Maybe you should rest? You sound hungover."

"Absolutely not." Wendy stepped tentatively through the dark of the room to find the lights in the bathroom, bringing them to a low dim to adjust her eyes and find a pain reliever to swallow. "What became of the survey?"

Bebe was hesitant to answer. "There was an accident while exploring the cave. Clyde was injured. Some of the drilling equipment was lost." Clyde had wrenched his foot between some rocks while moving through the caves and bawled all the while he was carried back out.

"I need to talk to Kyle immediately."

Bebe peeked out onto the bridge at the new acting captain pacing and frowning over his commlink, trying to negotiate with someone. "He's...Not taking calls at the moment."

"What else is happening out there."

"Half of the Stewards are refusing to clean up the mess the drunks made during the election."

"Send him to me, Bebe. Tell him I can solve all of this for him."

Wendy rehearsed what she would say. A firm approach would be best. She needed clearance as Captain to investigate the circumstances of the election to her satisfaction. Moving from Bebe's quarters with a painful squint against the light in the hall, she found the turbolift and waited for Kyle to arrive, stepping in with him and holding it between floors to talk to him.

Wendy summed up her best plan of action for Kyle. "Give me back my ship. It's what's best for the crew."

One set of arms folded, one set akimbo, Kyle closed himself off and stood confidently. "I have the command."

They each mirrored the others' glare. Wendy straightened herself up, fists clenched. "I'm taking it back before anyone else gets hurt."

Kyle tried to absolve himself. "One accident-"

Wendy advanced closer. "That's more than enough. Go out there and tell them. Laugh it off. Don't wait for a second accident to realize you don't have the experience to keep my crew safe."

"As the captain, you should consider what the members of your crew want, shouldn't you? Who they voted for? If you are feeling upset, you should talk to Counselor Marsh. Excuse me."

Kyle excused himself from the lift without Wendy's say. She wasn't ready to accuse him of anything without evidence, but why did he want to be the captain in the first place? She took the lift down to Medical to find the counselor.

"Wendy, what do you want to talk about?"

Stan drank from a glass of water fizzing with an antacid, the lights dimmed down low. Where did his loyalties lie now? After just a few nights, he acted as if he'd always known Kyle somehow. Wendy crossed the room to lean against the guest armchair. She needed to ask about a way to get her back into power, but something else came to mind.

"If Kyle leaves at the end of this tour, would you go with him?"

"I don't know," Stan mumbled.

Wendy let out an explosive breath and sunk over the armchair. "You would, wouldn't you?"

Stan shook his head. "I can't choose."

Wendy pressed again, "What would you choose?"

"Why are you making me choose?"

"I'm not," Wendy said defensively, "but you'll have to someday soon."

"Only if Kyle leaves."

Wendy's eyes flitted away dangerously. She could make him leave if she wanted to, just as soon as she was Captain again.

Stan defended his position. "Kyle's been an asset to this ship, and he has people that matter to him here too."

A piercing ring made Wendy feel like the sutures of her skull were vibrating, scraping over each other. She clutched at her temples and bowed over in her seat, lashing, "If you would choose him, I'm not sure that I would still want you here."

Stan rose from his desk, pleading, "Wendy."

Wendy rose from her seat, trying to cross the room for the door before Stan could block her. "I'm leaving now. This session's over."

Stan caught her arm."Wendy!"

Wendy clenched up. "Get your hand off me."

Stan let go. "I'm sorry."

Wendy held her face in her palm and sighed. "I'm not feeling right."

"Maybe taking a break would be good for you."

"No one puts me on break but me," Wendy insisted upon her principals. "I'm going to get to the bottom of how that farce of an election came to be."

Being the Captain meant a lot to Wendy. She'd trained the hardest out of any of them for it. Kyle's reasons for taking the position were decidedly not as noble, but he couldn't bear to tell her the truth why. "Did you try just asking Kyle for your job back?"

"Yes," Wendy glared and crossed her arms. "He said no."

"Wait for the crew to come around," Stan advised. "At most it will take a month for the trial period to end, and you can get voted back in."

Wendy tapped her boot impatiently. Wait an entire month? "I'll ask again tomorrow."

It was awkward goings for the crew of the Streisand. After something of a bender, they'd elected an alien to captain their ship. The stewards, particular the night-shift stewards that wore black uniforms even off-hours, refused to clean the previous night's damage. Banners, ballots, confetti, beer bottles, apple pies, articles of discarded clothing- the campaign trail left devastation in its wake, and the only trace of the stewards tasked with cleaning it were butts of clove cigarettes and stained cups of coffee, a single defiant message scrawled in black lipstick. 'Xeno-conformists: clean up your own mess for once!'

Kyle had to lean heavily on Bebe's know-how with Wendy refusing to speak to him further. Unfortunately, Bebe had her own department's issues to deal with. Eric Cartman, and the few people that took him seriously, raided the armory and blocked off the terminals in Security. Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker had quarantined themselves from the drunks the night before, but the door to their quarters was now stuck, and it couldn't be unstuck without access to the terminals in Security. At this point, Kyle went to the counselor for the third time that day. Bebe defused the situation by going to Engineering, getting Jimmy to re-route the flow of air vents, funneling clove cigarette smoke and 80's darkwave music into the Security terminal room until Cartman and his rebel band were smoked out. With access to the Security terminals, she could unlock the door to Craig's quarters, but it turns out that had been a ruse to skip work and fool around. A "Steward Appreciation" event was declared, recruiting volunteers to clean the election messes. At the end of such a long day, everyone needed a chance to relax.

Bebe entered her cabin to find Wendy spread across her bed in black lingerie; sheer thigh-high stockings, garters, hip-hugging lace panties, and padded brassiere. "Wow." Bebe crossed the room and joined Wendy in bed with her uniform still on, climbing on top her, kissing a line down her collar to her chest. "I could sleep for days on these perky tits, let me tell you."

"No, don't sleep!" Wendy struggled under Bebe's weight, tugging at her shoulders. "I've been waiting all night for you!"

"I'm so tired after a long day, you know?" Bebe feigned a yawn and nuzzled Wendy's bust, picking up the scent of lavender oil and freshly-laundered unmentionables.

Wendy cast her eyes aside scornfully at a trio of dripping white candles on the nightstand. "Don't tease me."

"Where's the fun in that?" Bebe cooed, cast in intimate shadow.

"It makes me feel foolish, going to all this effort."

"Wendy, you look so gorgeous. Like one of those designer cakes from the magazines we used to read."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I want to have my cake a while...Don't worry. I'll eat it too."

Wendy scoffed, rolled her eyes even. But her stomach fluttered and she writhed over the bed as Bebe delicately touched her. Fingertips grazing from hips to bust, nails picking and scratching over black lace. Wendy submitted herself completely, arms above her, held against the bedpost by some imaginary restraint. Bebe tickled over the grooves of her ribs, traced around their curvature, up between her shoulder blades, she unfastened her bra with the utmost of ease, easing the straps from her shoulders. Bebe cupped and palmed Wendy's bare breasts, kissing up from beneath them at faded scars, thumbs dragging and pinning down the stiff peaks of her pink nipples. Rising up higher, claiming her open mouth, swallowing her heated sighs- painted, waxen lips docked in an exchange of weaving tongues.

Captive hands fell from their place against the headboard. Thin fingers and purple nails clicked over golden buttons- peeling off a red coat, a white shirt, tan pants, a red bra- losing patience to scramble behind shoulders and squeeze into an embrace, chests pressing and sliding to bring their thudding hearts as close as could be.

Mutually rolling hips and tugging hands eased off stifling panties. Bebe crawled down Wendy's body, lips stamping over flesh, mapping out constellations. Wendy let her head drop back onto the mattress, clutching at the sheets and closing her eyes to divert the focus of her senses to Bebe's knowing touching and tasting of her body. She clasped her thighs about Bebe's cheeks, releasing the sheets to rush for a hold on Bebe's dense blonde curls, breathlessly pleading for mercy- but she was afforded no such thing, Bebe crooked and nudged past Wendy's defenses to find her fountainhead, assailing her with the flicking tip of her tongue until Wendy thrashed with her back arched up off the bed and moaned- not the sweet, syrupy sort of moan she once fed to boys that didn't know any better, but the sort of moan that pitched from a hoarse cry to a splitting shriek, interspersed with expletives.

Panting, sweating across her brow, Wendy peeled her thighs away from Bebe's cheeks, hands dropping to her sides. Bebe posed her as she liked; moving to a seated position, leaning back, propped up on her right hand, her left holding at Wendy's hip, adjusting to bring the junction of their legs together. Wendy kept her phantom limb pinned at the bottom of the heap, affirming the position of her raised and intact left leg with a squeeze around Bebe's waist.

Digging heels into the bedspread, scissoring their legs together wrought breaking waves of turbulent pleasure; jerking and undulating with fluid velocity, quickly rising toward a synchronized crest, steepening until they could rise no more, brought to ruinous relief, jerking and shuddering.

Bebe untangled herself and crawled up the bed to reach for the magic wand massager from her nightstand. She tended to herself at first, with Wendy tucked in against her, kissing her ear and neck. It wasn't until Wendy's hand joined her own in firmly pressing the buzzing wand on herself that she reached the summit she had been craving. Bebe's trembling fingers fell from the wand, but Wendy fed her some of her own medicine, keeping here there at that peak, locked in the rigor of the wand's sensual spell until she had learned her lesson and made a mess of the bedsheets.

As soon as her erotic vapors cleared, and she could stand again without risking her knees buckling underneath her, Bebe fetched a full glass of water for the both of them. They drank in silence, holding hands.

"I could have been doing that all break," Wendy realized.

"Yeah, you could have. Always next year. Right?" Bebe squeezed Wendy's hand and gulped down a mouthful of water.

"Right." Wendy looked far and away, up at the ceiling.

"You've got your 'planning for the future' face on." Bebe hummed, looking at her soft frowning lips and the bitter stitch of her eyebrows.

Wendy ran her nails over Bebe's knuckles. She had a clearer view of the future in mind. Who would be there, who might not, and why. "I'm ready to let go of Stan. For good this time."

"Pushing away isn't the same thing as letting go," Bebe commented. "Stan being with Kyle seems to bother you more than you'll admit."

"After Earth was destroyed by the Joozians...Every little piece of my world was blown away." Wendy rolled onto her side, pulling along Bebe's hand to cross over her shoulder and hold her from behind. "The crew of this ship is all I have left of home. Asking me to entrust any of it to...To Kyle...I don't trust him. And I don't think I'll ever like him."

"Give it time." Bebe snaked her other arm around Wendy to clasp her hands into a firm hold. "You said it yourself to Cartman; Stan and Ike stand by him. They know him. I think he has good intentions. You don't have any proof that he's conspired to act against you."

Wendy huffed and shifted to get comfortable. "What if I do?"

"You'll do what's best for your crew. Like you always have- Captain." Bebe pressed her lips to the nape of Wendy's neck. "Even if you're not technically captain tonight. Does that mean I'm your superior?"

"You're my number one."

Not so far away from Bebe's room, in the private bath of the Captain's quarters, Kyle let out a deep sigh. The election for captaincy remained as a whirlwind of a memory. Not exactly a glowing representation of human democracy. Drunk young rebels hoisting someone who has no idea what they're doing on their shoulders, debating with hip-fired insults and then being too hungover afterwards to carry out the radical changes they demanded. The ensuing drama had consumed his whole day. It was only in the sanctified privacy of the bathtub that Kyle had a moment to better observe Stan; too lethargic to hold up his own head, sighing like a dog looking out at a clear day from the inside of an empty house.

"Stan, what's wrong?"

Stan resisted the urge to say 'nothing'. "I relapsed," he began, and gave it a pause to frame the rest of what he had to say. "Because of the survey yesterday, I got drunk. Before I realized what it was, I felt so happy. Like I was a kid again, before I'd ever been depressed. Now I feel like shit, because that feeling didn't come from just being, it came from alcohol." The realization made him feel broken; wiring in his brain had been irreparably frayed or crossed from repeated abuse, resulting in a machine that came to depend on poison.

Kyle did his best to drive Stan away from those mental ledges, shifting and displacing water around him in a move to shift closer in the tub. "It wasn't your fault that it happened. What you're feeling now is just withdrawals. You can be that happy again, I'll show you."

Stan felt thankful that he was able to believe Kyle's words. They were close and warm but he remained rigid in posture.

"What else is wrong?"

His talk with Wendy still weighed on him; in digging for paydirt in her conflict with Kyle, Stan was getting caught in the hail. Wendy's suspicions were too canny to the ones Cartman harbored, and that was typically a good indicator of being in the wrong. One thing she was right about was knowing where he stood with Kyle. "What will you do once the program is over? If we're together."

Kyle wanted to say 'make Ike your brother-in-law', but opted to say instead, "we could visit Fognl over the break. I'd introduce you to my parents."

"What about after the break? Would you come back to the Streisand?"

Kyle's time aboard the ship had ping-ponged between extremes of bawdy gaiety and palpable anxiety. Highly unpredictable, with only an outward appearance of professionalism; that was the character of humanity he had been warned about, but he'd been swept up in it all the same.

"I would, to be with you. But it won't be my decision. Would you leave? To be with me?"

Contrary to his showing in front of Wendy, Stan replied at once, "of course." However, just after that, hesitation caught back up to him. "I just...What will I do?" Stan held out his hands in front of him as if holding an empty set of infinite possibilities. "My entire life since the resettlement has been training for the Academy, with all of my friends."

Kyle caught Stan's hands. They had pruned up from sitting in the bath for so long. If one of them had to leave everything they knew to be together, Kyle was prepared to be the one to do it. There was just one thing in their way. "I need to make peace with Wendy."

"Me too," Stan mumbled.

"Tomorrow."

The night hours passed to a new day. In the morning, Stan arranged another meeting with Wendy in his office, to mediate some resolution between her and Kyle. The three of them were too tense to sit down.

"Are you still mad at me?" Kyle asked Wendy.

Wendy had crossed her arms, then became aware she was crossing her arms, shifting both hands to her hips. She made a poor job of convincing, insisting, "I'm not mad at you."

"I don't think we get along," Kyle grimaced, wringing his hands together.

Wendy saw the apology on Kyle's face, but she only forgave wrongdoing once it was righted. "It would be easier if circumstances were different."

Kyle looked to Stan, who nodded from his standing position, behind the safety of his desk. "What can I do?"

"Please, give me my post back." That would be her one concession, asking for what was rightfully hers, drunken coups notwithstanding.

Kyle bowed with humility. "Alright, Wendy."

"Really?" Wendy didn't care to gloat. If, after her investigation, she found that there had been no impropriety at the election, she'd have to make her own apology.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, this is too much for me." Kyle crossed behind Stan's desk to be in the reach of Stan, who consoled him with a pat on the shoulder.

"Why did you run to begin with?"

Kyle hesitated. "Leslie told me to?"

Her name had popped up again, given as the source for another conflict that had to be mediated. She hadn't been with the crew long, but she'd never meddled and played politics like this- she just didn't seem the type to enjoy causing drama. So why did this keep happening? "Leslie...Is that really the only reason?"

"There's another reason, but you're not going to like it." Kyle and Stan averted their eyes bashfully.

"What is it."

Kyle took a pause. As much as could be afforded with Wendy's stern glare upon him. He had to tell the truth. "Only the Captain's quarters have a bathtub."

Mercifully, Wendy was ignorant of the Joozians' mating habits. "You enjoy taking baths that much?"

Before she could expose any more details, Kyle tried leading her off the trail by offering, "I'll have the stewards move our things as soon as they can," clearing himself from duty and re-assigning Wendy as Captain. He gave Stan a quick peck on the cheek and all but scuttled out of the counselor's office, heading back to his original post in Engineering.

Wendy was already standing up straighter with assumed authority, furiously tapping away at her commlink, only briefly glaring up to ask, "Stan, you supported Kyle taking over my position for the sake of a private bath?"

"I support him in general."

"So you thought he'd make a better captain than me?"

"Not necessarily!" Stan put up his hands, less in defense and more in plying for mercy. "I just didn't want him to think that I thought he wouldn't make a good captain."

"Oh, Stanley." Wendy shook her head. Back in charge, she found Leslie next to continue her investigation, asking her on sight, "What about you, did you run because you wanted my bath, too?"

Leslie, as always, was doll-like and unflappable. "Submerging myself in water for a prolonged period of time would be problematic for my synthetic dermis."

"Why then?"

Leslie's replies always came promptly, in a monotone cadence of eerily consistent pacing. "I thought it might make you happier, to lessen your burden."

Wendy wasn't buying it. "Not in the least."

"My apologies, Captain."

"Why did you encourage Kyle to run?"

Leslie paused. That served as something of a tell, that she had to process something elaborate in her complex programming before responding. "I cannot say."

Wendy closed Leslie off from the rest of her crew, speaking softly but severely."I am the Captain again, so you do need to say."

Leslie steeled herself behind synthetic veneer, ceasing the simulated communication gestures of her facial features. "I simply cannot say."

Wendy asked abruptly to shake up Leslie's logic gates, "why wasn't Kyle's PSG reported to the Principal?" Even if Kyle chose discretion in the matter, the report should have been forwarded around the same time as Kyle's application for a workplace relationship, and yet Charles had never mentioned it.

Looking down at her boots, eyes fluttering and glowing, there came an acute sound of whirring from Leslie's central processing unit. "Captain, these events are not connected-"

Wendy pressed the attack. "On the night of the welcoming party, why did you invite Cartman, knowing he might start a conflict with Kyle?"

Leslie executed an attempt at deflection with light humor. What Wendy presented thus far remained circumstantial, and she put an easy smile back on her face. "It sounded entertaining."

With access to the computers, Wendy reviewed the one file that supposedly did make its way back to the Academy recently. "In Kyle's workplace relationship form, he described dating a synthetic lifeform in the shape of a human female. Was that you?"

"Yes," Leslie admitted. "We met briefly when I escorted Ike to Joozia's moon one year ago. Kyle seemed to show some interest in me. Because he flattered me, I flattered him in turn."

"What's this in the file about you leading him on? Was there another reason you met with him privately?"

"The bitter words of a jilted suitor, that's all."

The investigation hit a wall. With the Chief Engineer in charge of many of the data consoles, there was a chance that other relevant evidence could be edited or deleted. Nothing less than a confession would do. "Would you act against me, Leslie? Lie to me?"

"No, Captain. All that I have done, I have done to advance the missions you have set for us. To make humanity visible on the intergalactic stage. To distinguish the crew of the Streisand. To improve Human-Joozian relations."

"-and the things you did for entertainment. Was that just for you?"

"I cannot say."

Wendy continued to press Leslie, damning each of her omissions with another question for her to refute, trying to stick her to admitting anything. "Why didn't you mention that you knew Kyle before the welcoming party? Were you not aware that the snowfall of Planet IX could intoxicate the survey crew? Was the election staged? Did you rig the results?"

Leslie grew weary, as much as a synthetic could get weary- conflicting protocols running exhaustive loops that overheated her. Leslie could beat Wendy in a game of chess nintey-nine times out of one hundred, but she could not deceive her. In the end, she had been built to help humans, and during the time she stalled for, no predictive model offered her a solution to help Wendy while continuing to deny her. "Captain, if you continue this line of questioning, it will bring ruin to our mission."

Wendy reached out and grabbed Leslie's shoulders, looking into her dimly-glowing green eyes. She wanted to believe that the AI was still on her side, for the sake of something like honor or loyalty. Not everyone believed that synthetics were capable of those virtues, or of true human empathy. Maybe Wendy had been projecting onto Leslie; saw her as someone intelligent but ignored, someone who put others before oneself, someone attentive but often acting cold and blunt toward people she cared about. Someone like herself. Did they really value the same things after all? Wendy had to know. "Our mission is independence, and our accomplishments are meaningless if we're manipulated into them. If we are being manipulated, it cannot be allowed to stand; it is a violation of the Galactic Federation's Prime Directive, the guiding principle by which we mean to be seen as equals, not as lesser beings! If you have loyalty to humanity, to the mission of the Streisand, to me, you will answer my questions truthfully. Understood?"

"Yes, Captain Testaburger." The image of Wendy looking at her so intently remained buffered in Leslie's quick access memory. She could not lie any longer, after being looked upon as a friend that had done wrong, and not as a machine that disobeyed orders.

Wendy took her hands off Leslie's shoulders, asking again, "was the election real?"

"Spoofed, from the holo-conference to the vote tally. Due to the local signal disturbances, the Academy Administration has no knowledge of the majority of recent events on-board the Streisand."

Wendy felt pitiful to be so relieved that the votes had been false, that her crew wasn't secretly hoping for anyone to succeed her role. There were still more questions to answer. "Who put you up to all of this?"

"FOGNL Networks' Television Producers and Advertisers."

Wendy's eyes opened wide as she remembered the day that the truth of Earth was revealed to humanity. There was no miracle behind their creation, but instead a boardroom meeting of television executives. Once they found out, their home was destroyed. Ever since, humanity worked tirelessly to resettle, to be seen as equals. And they'd been lied to. It was all happening again. She was speechless, leaving Leslie to explain further.

"When I escorted Ike to the moon of Joozia, I was approached by an agent of FOGNL network. Through the recently installed Academy Principal, the synthetic human designated as Phillip Charles, the Human-Joozian Cultural Exchange Program was introduced. I interviewed Kyle Broflovski under the pretense of a date, and delivered instructions for him to attempt to romance a member of our crew. Once he arrived, on behalf of the network, my prerogative has been to improve the viewer ratings of the program by introducing conflict into your daily lives. They had so much planned for the Streisand...Unfortunately, now that you know the exchange program is staged, the show will be canceled. To prevent this information from spreading, this ship will be demolished by military drones. There is but scant time to prepare our defenses. I will help, if you will have me."

From the word 'canceled', Wendy jumped out of her seat in a panic, sending a ship-wide alert. "Enemy drone ships are converging on our location- all combat personnel to their posts, all non-combat personnel retreat to the central decks. Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski, report to the bridge." Wendy ran for the turbolift, shouting over her shoulder at Leslie. "See us through this alive and I'll forgive you!"

Word spread fast. The Program was another Joozian ruse. Now that it was canceled, now that they knew, they faced annihilation for the second time. The crew scrambled to their positions. Kyle swore again and again he didn't know what was going on, didn't know why this was happening, hiding against Stan on the run for the lift to the bridge, taking the immediate brunt of hate for the Joozians bubbling to the surface amongst the humans all around him, passing in the hall from their stations to the relative security of the central decks. Some of them glared and even swore at him, and they swore at Stan for standing by him, shoved past them in the hall.

Inside the lift, Kyle surged toward Stan for the comfort of embrace, but was pushed away. His mouth fell open in shock. Why? It wasn't fair. Kyle was in just as much danger as everyone else. This was the first time that Stan had looked upon him with anger, the first time he'd raised his voice at him.

"Kyle, you knew about this? That this was all a show?"

"No! I told you, I didn't know!" Kyle pleaded for Stan to believe him, feeling separated, as if an invisible barrier was rising up between them; unable to reach for him, his words not passing through.

Stan didn't believe him. "How could you not know?"

"I had memory loss after the FTL jump, it's a side-effect of PGS- otherwise I would have told you!" Four hands clutching at his own chest, his heart jumping in the grip of a painful vise like a trapped animal.

Stan reacted with cynicism, on defense after feeling deceived. Of course the universe didn't just randomly introduce him to some new and exciting person that made him feel loved- someone was watching him, toying with him to see how he'd react. "So you could have known before the jump, when we first met. How do I know it was real at all?"

Kyle couldn't get Stan's eyes to meet him, craning his head, tense with the desire to bridge the gap between them, but held back, not wanting to be pushed away again. "It was real." He said it quietly, so that Stan would have to listen to pick out out of the ambient noise in the lift. Stan heard him. He looked into his watery eyes and took a tentative half-step forward. "I don't know what I was expecting back then, but I know that I really fell for you when I first saw you! What does it matter why we met..."

"It was programmed!"

"What we have together can't be programmed!" Kyle pleaded, wrung his hands, and cringed with heartache, but Stan was the one who started crying first; stumbling back to the wall, head hanging, hands bracing on knees, gritting his teeth. Kyle moved toward him, arms looping under his shoulders to keep him from sinking to the ground, trying to prove something by vainly mashing their lips together.

Stan's lips drew back at first, but despite what deceit may have occurred, a truth remained in the kisses between them that love could be real, and if they pushed together instead of pulling away it would be real. "Are you going to be the same person to me?" He cried, "once no one's watching?"

"Of course I will."

Stan pleaded to whoever might still be watching them. "Turn it off for a minute, okay?"

As an explorer-class vessel, the Streisand was not suited for combat, and it was pitted against several smaller, unmanned ships suited for just that. Ideally, space combat was decided in an instant after something like a game of hide-and-seek. Trading shots for a prolonged period of time was certain to leave both parties crippled if not outright destroyed, stranded in space.

While the engineers scrambled to locate the cloaked attack drones zeroing in on them, and prepare for a mid-flight FTL jump, the security team remotely piloted shuttle-craft from the dock to act as decoys for the drones to attack, losing multi-million dollar hardware to buy seconds at a time and give fleeting clues to the coordinates of the enemy ships. Leslie warning them of the attack had been her saving grace, and the x-factor in the ensuing dogfight was human pilots against drones; the latter possessing no cunning, acting under clear parameters to clear obstacles to the target, to overcome its defenses, to destroy it.

Fighting for their lives, exhausting a salvo intended to last a full year of surveying unknown and possibly hostile space, the Streisand covered the drones with enough detritus from explosions to render them visible and return more accurate fire.

After the melee, the ship was largely intact, but some of the outer extremities had been blown away, the vessel smoking and bleeding, drifting inertly through debris.

Wendy heaved a terrible sigh and sunk into the Captain's chair. One more drone, or a sentient pilot in any of them, would have been been enough to bring the Streisand down. All she could do was shout commands and watch little lights blink as she lost pieces of her ship. "We're out of the shit, for now. Leslie, what do you think should be our next move?"

A turbolift that had stalled during combat finally arrived at the bridge, doors unsealing to reveal Stan and Kyle. Kyle was a proud sort, he would not meekly limp onto the bridge with his head bowed; but there was nothing to be proud of at the moment, other than the fact that Stan was still holding his hand, so he merely walked, trying to look neutral, dignified even. His acting went unnoticed as Wendy and the bridge staff waited for Leslie's response, the forward display overlaid with a feed showing her in her lab by the FTL consoles.

"I falsified a report that the ship was demolished, that will give us some time. We could make a jump to FOGNL itself, and negotiate a non-disclosure agreement with the network; leveraging our evidence against them as blackmail, offering to continue the program in a more documentary format to allow for our awareness of the program."

Wendy swiveled in her chair, addressing Kyle. "What do you think we should do?"

"Leslie's plan...That sounds good, don't you think?"

"No, I don't. You two are still just thinking about a path of least resistance. Joozian-Human relations are meaningless if they are based on deception. Our mission is equality. We will reveal the program, so that other ships' crews are not put in the same jeopardy mine was. It will be in the interest of the network to have a say in how it is revealed, and that will be the extent of our negotiations."

Stan spoke up, unbidden. "What about Kyle?"

Wendy withheld some disappointment. Stan could be loyal to a fault, but he was loyal toward him now, after everything that had happened? "Do you have anything to say for yourself, Kyle?"

All eyes on him, expecting some kind of speech.

"When the Broflovskis volunteered to take a human exchange, we had no idea that the homeworld was involved...At least until Leslie told me. But, even after she did...I didn't raise any protests. If I did, they would have found someone else that would play along, and I really just...Wanted to meet all of you. I had a year to think about it, but at the end of it, Ike was a member of my family, and I loved him. I wanted to meet you all even more, and when I did, I fell in love again, with Stan." Kyle's dignified composure only lasted until Stan started to cry again, joining him, stammering, "I understand if you don't trust me, if you don't want me here, I'm so sorry..."

The crew of the Streisand stood divided. A decision had to be made. "We will hold a vote. Whether you are allowed to stay, or whether you must go. You may leave the bridge now. Stan, you stay."

They were afforded the time for an embrace. In the end, the vote came to a narrow margin, but Kyle had to go. When they left him behind on Fognl after the negotiation, Stan couldn't bear to look back. He would have liked to stay with Kyle, but outside of the Broflovski family home, it did not seem like a place hospitable to humans.


	5. Epilogue

It was a long time coming, but Sheila had had enough of Kyle spending every evening at the house on the couch, watching the crew of the Streisand on television in his pajamas. His hair was a frizzy mess, his skin was becoming pale, his eyes and cheeks were often pink-tinged and puffy from crying. His anguished groans at the television were disturbing her inner peace.

"Kyle, why are you torturing yourself watching this program? I understand how upset you are that you were voted off, but it's time to come back to reality!"

Kyle scrunched up his face and tried not to cry. He failed. "The program was my reality Mom, it was all real to me! It wasn't an act! Why won't anyone believe me?"

Sheila threw up her hands, "You had to have known, in the back of your mind, that the Program would be recording your actions- but still you had sex with that human, after the first date! God, what did I do to raise a son with such loose morals!"

It was the way the Program was edited, Kyle thought bitterly. They made him out to be something he wasn't, to cheapen what he had with Stan. Against his better judgment, Kyle kept watching, wasting away on a hope to catch even a glimpse of Stan- but he shied away from the camera. He blended into the background. He'd cover his eyes with his hands and it made Kyle ache. "I couldn't get away from it if I wanted to," Kyle mumbled in defeat. "Everyone is watching it. You and dad are watching it."

"You could certainly get away from it, if you moved out," Sheila reminded. "Gerald and I watch because we want to support your baby brother." After excusing herself, Sheila purposefully ran a vacuum hose over the couch, nudging Kyle up to get him on his feet. Once the crumbs of poptarts had been removed from the couch, Sheila and her son sat down to watch the program together.

"You know Gerald and I love seeing those two boys together- Tweek and Craig? They are so precious! We were thinking of commissioning a painting of them, and hanging it right there on the wall." Sheila pointed out the proposed spot for the finished piece.

Kyle groaned and sank in his seat. "Reality," as his mother called it, was sinking in. His fifteen minutes were up. He shouldn't watch the program anymore. If Kyle continued to watch, he might see that one day, Stan would stop turning away and hiding his eyes from the camera. He'd be smiling again, even without Kyle there. He'd forget all about him, and shine for all to see; a twinkling star millions of miles away. The gravity of it crushed Kyle until a fresh film of tears blotted out the images on-screen and the voices from the TV hissed like meaningless noise.

Sheila scooted over on the couch and dabbed at her son's cheeks with the corner of her apron. "Bubula, like it or not, the program is going to end one day. There won't be any more to watch, so either enjoy it while you can or stop watching it." she cupped her palm over her son's cheek. "Your face is a mess- you need to hydrate. Get yourself a glass of water from the kitchen."

By her incessant prodding, Kyle was peeled from the couch and sent out of the living room long enough to get some water, shoulders slumped, leaving the noise behind him in obscurity, tuning it out completely with the rushing sound of the sink's water faucet, looking numbly out the window at dense, fluffy pink clouds, huddling together under a bright green sky glittering with distant light.

The program had been greatly altered in format to accommodate the cast being self-aware, with footage shown from security cameras, or documentary-style shooting with interviews interspersed throughout.

Live from the bridge, Leslie interviewed the Captain."Wendy, what do you think of the program?"

The Captain answered curtly,"I think that it could be a very valuable tool for education, but instead it's edited for sensationalized drama. Further, it's greatly impacted the efficacy of our operations."

With extra care to her hair and make-up, Bebe abruptly slid into view. "Hey, what's up, TV-land? Co-Captain Bebe Stevens, reporting in!" Bebe posed, doffing a red beret, working more closely with Wendy on the bridge after her promotion. Wendy was relieved to have her there and pull the focus of the camera away.

Shooting POV from ocular cameras, Leslie had taken it upon herself to conduct impromptu interviews, with spare rooms on each deck assigned as 'confessional booths' for the crew to talk into. "What are your plans for the upcoming season?"

Wendy tried to keep them engaged on the scientific merits of their expeditions, the real work they were doing. "A local asteroid cluster skimmed the orbit of a gas giant, and it is exhibiting unidentified chemical change. We'll be investigating samples of the asteroids and further investigating the area."

Gassy rocks was the farthest thing from the minds of the viewers, surely. Leslie prodded, "You're taking something of a detour today, isn't that right?"

Wendy sighed in defeat. Tawdry reality shows would always perform better than edutainment, wouldn't they? "Bebe, say something to make the camera pan away from me."

"Yeah! Over here, look out the window. One of the cloud cities on Joozia's moon. Can you see your house from here?" Bebe winked, the forward display behind her showing the nose of the Streisand pushing aside fluffy pink clouds to show a single human-styled house floating amongst alien pods and towers. A little red-haired dot leaned out of a window, and moments later came crashing out the front door to watch a shuttle from the ship land on his lawn, still wearing his Terrence & Phillip pajama bottoms and Earth T-shirt.

Stan jumped out of the shuttle while it was still idling a few feet off the ground, hitting it running, running toward and colliding with Kyle. They each tried to pick the other up, laughing and kissing and twirling on a lawn of purple grass.

They could not be separated long enough to conduct the interview Leslie had wanted to back onboard the ship. "Kyle, Stan appealed the decision to expel you from the ship. The crew of the Streisand voted you back on, and the fans couldn't be happier; they just can't live without Style. What are you feeling right now?"

"I just want to say thank you to everyone who rooted for us. It's because of your support that we're still here. Can you look away now? I want to be alone with Stan."

 

THE END


End file.
